


Fairy Tales and Hokum

by Belphegor



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Gen, Humor, LOTS of shout-outs to the films, Original Character(s), also loads of suspension of disbelief regarding mythology and history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 162,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belphegor/pseuds/Belphegor
Summary: 1937: Two years after the events of Ahm Shere, the O’Connells are “required” by the British Government to bring the Diamond taken there from Egypt to England. In Cairo, while Evelyn deals with the negotiations and Rick waits for doom to strike again, Jonathan bumps into an old friend of his from university, Tom Ferguson. Things start to go awry when the Diamond is stolen from the Museum and old loyalties are tested...





	1. Overture

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a weird history. I started writing it in July 2003, found a great beta reader, and thought “I’m not posting it until it’s finished”. Turns out it was wishful thinking. My beta had to bow out and I started publishing it in September 2004, hoping to find another (which I did – and may I say I was extremely fortunate in beta readers). I wrote and wrote and hit a snag in 2006, then finally got the 16th chapter out in 2008, and then lost the spark. Said spark came back from the dead after what felt like millennia but was actually a dozen years, and I actually _finally_ completed the story in October 2019. 
> 
> So here I am, presenting this story again with a few rewrites that hopefully makes it read better and helps with characterisation and plot. Because twenty years after the first film I still love these characters dearly and hope to do them justice.
> 
> Since this is set two years after _TMR_ and most of it was planned before 2008, needless to say there will be absolutely no reference to _Tomb of the Dragon Emperor_.
> 
> Hope you'll like it!

_Cairo, July 1937_

A tourist’s first impression of this part of Cairo was mostly a blinding white light. The little houses, the blazing sky, the glittering sun, even the dust flying around helped complete the effect.

Of course, as soon as your eyes – and mind – adjusted, you could see and feel the dust settled on absolutely everything, including your ears and nose, the layers of grime, the heaps of donkey and mule droppings in the streets… and if you were very careful, you could catch the hand of the passing pickpocket sneaking for your wallet, as it was in any metropolis big and noisy enough for passers-by to be distracted.

Not that this particular thought worried one particular Englishman currently sauntering across the streets of Cairo. As a fairly skilled pickpocket himself, Jonathan Carnahan didn’t need to eye every corner warily – all he needed to do was to watch his own self and make sure that no belongings of his landed in anyone’s pocket. Or vice versa.

Jonathan turned round a corner, whistling a jaunty jazz tune. Despite his cheerful demeanour, he was feeling slightly miffed, having gone out in the hopes of finding something for Evy’s birthday and come home empty-handed. Lucky thing that he still had a couple of weeks to go. After years of searching frantically for a gift at the very last moment, he was determined to get his hands on something she might like – and preferably something that didn’t involve puzzle boxes, big black books, and three-thousand-years-old mummies rising from the dead. That was over. He, for one, had had his share of insane stuff like that.

Thinking of their last trip to Egypt together wiped the smile off his face. It had been two years, but how could he ever forget that horrible, ice-cold feeling that had left him completely numb, as he knelt next to the dead body of his sister, trying to comfort his nephew and failing so thoroughly? He had _never_ felt so miserable in all his life. Since his life included a stint in the trenches and being chased by the undead more times than was necessary, this was saying something.

_There it goes again_. Jonathan shook his head, and quickened his pace. He’d got fairly good at actively ignoring this kind of memories, but it was getting harder when they kept popping back up without a warning. Unlike his brother-in-law, for whom this part of the world meant little else than bloody unnecessary conflict, the inside of a gaol, and the aforementioned undead, Jonathan didn’t really mind returning to Egypt. He’d had quite a few fond memories of the place before the whole nasty mummy business. It was the reason behind the trip that bothered him a little.

Two years ago, the second before the oasis of Ahm Shere sank into the ground, Jonathan had taken as a souvenir – and compensation for his troubles – the enormous diamond resting atop the pyramid. He’d felt very proud of himself for that, and it had come to him as a nasty bit of shock when Evy had told him there was absolutely _no way_ he would take it to London. Yet, after much arguing on his part, and even more talking and coaxing on his sister’s, he had finally admitted, despondently, that she might be right after all.

The Cairo Egyptian Museum of Antiquities had offered him a tidy sum, but it had not really consoled him – not when he had been strong-armed into giving a substantial part to Izzy as compensation for _his_ troubles. Since the man never knew the real value of the gem, however, said compensation amounted to a quarter rather than the half he had been demanding, a fact which Jonathan adamantly refused to feel guilty over.

Even Evy reminding him that the diamond couldn’t be safer than in this hidden room, under the constant, hawk-like watch of the Medjai curator, had not been quite enough. The diamond was beautiful, gleaming white, inlaid with elaborated gold and pearls, and so big the weight of it had nearly pulled Jonathan down from the dirigible. Parting with it had not been easy.

And then, just a few months ago, the British government had contacted Evy and Rick through the curator of the British Museum where Evy oversaw the seven Egyptian galleries. They had decided that the diamond was no longer safe in Egypt, with the Italian army invading Ethiopia not so long ago and the ominous tidings from Germany, Italy and Spain. The O’Connells had thus been kindly asked to return to Egypt, and accompany the diamond on its way to England. Which had meant, to put it more prosaically, that they were mandatory volunteers. The look on Rick’s face when he had explained it to his brother-in-law had been a murderous one – partly because he hated the idea of being ordered about, mainly because Evy was more than enthusiastic about it.

Alex had told his uncle afterwards of the row they’d had one night, thinking he was sound asleep. Poor kid had never heard his parents truly fight in the space of ten years, and it had obviously disturbed him. To tell the truth, it had disturbed Jonathan himself, who saw Evy and Rick as _the_ perfect couple in so many ways it was disgusting. Egypt – especially its supernatural side – had lost its charms for Rick ever since Ahm Shere. There was no way in hell he’d let his wife go there alone.

“And he said that Mum was ‘a magnet for trouble’, that each time they went to that ‘damn place someone died’, and after that Mum shouted something rude –”

“Rude? Evy? Are we really speaking of my baby sister there?” Uncle and nephew had been sitting on the carpet on the floor of the latter’s bedroom, back against the bed. Jonathan quite liked it when he went over to ‘baby-sit’ Alex – Evy had finally come to trust him when she and Rick had to go out for whatever reason, and they usually had a good time together. That evening, though, Alex had sat silently, looking crestfallen. When Jonathan had eventually managed to get him to talk, it was rather late in the night, and Alex ought to have been put to bed long ago. But neither of them were very eager about it just then.

His attempt at humour got a reluctant smile from Alex; he repeated what Evy had said to Jonathan, who let out a low whistle. “Indeed. Even your dad would call it rude, I guess.”

Alex gave another slight smile, and snuggled beside his uncle. A tad uncomfortable at first with this rather unusual display of emotion, Jonathan put an arm around his nephew’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Hey. Want a piece of advice from your old uncle?”

Alex nodded, not saying anything.

“Don’t worry too much. I’ve seen your parents together for eleven years, and if there’s only one thing I’m sure of in this world – they are so in love it’s sickening. It’s always been this way, and I’m sure it’ll always be this way.” Alex raised his eyes. Jonathan looked down at him, winking. “Get used to it, partner. We’re doomed.”

A moment’s silence passed, more comfortable and relaxed than it had been a few minutes earlier. Then Alex raised his blond head to ask, “D’you think we’ll go back to Egypt, then?”

“I don’t know.” Jonathan shifted slightly on the floor. “I wouldn’t say no to a trip there – the country’s a fine one. And after all, we’re talking about _my_ diamond here, dammit.” Alex snorted, and Jonathan chose to ignore it. “Seriously, I like the place. I spent most of my time as a kid there.”

“Well, I’d _love_ to go.” The passion in his nephew’s voice echoed his mum’s whenever she spoke of Egypt, and it wasn’t lost on Jonathan.

“You sure? I would’ve thought that you would hate it, actually. You didn’t have what I’d call a good time last time you went there.”

“You only say that because you were scared to death most of the time.”

“That’s not true.”

“Like hell it isn’t!”

Jonathan managed to give Alex what he thought was a stern look. The boy just grinned.

“And you kiss your mother with that mouth.”

“Bet Dad hasn’t taught me half of what he knows.”

This time, they both chuckled. Then Alex scrambled out of his uncle’s arms and looked at him in the eye. “Why won’t he go back to Egypt?”

“Well, it’s – it’s complicated.” _No it’s not_. “I guess he doesn’t want to – lose you or your mum again.” Jonathan swallowed. “And to tell you the truth… I have to agree with him on that one.”

“But it’s only for the diamond!” Alex exclaimed. “No Book of the Dead, no mummies, no ancient curses. Only a stupid diamond to take to England.”

Jonathan grinned. “The problem is, each time your mum begins her sentence by ‘It’s _only_’ something, the world gone upside down and your mum and dad have to save it. Mostly because they doomed it in the first place. If my memory serves me right, it was first the Book of the Dead, then the chest with that bloody Bracelet of Anubis.” Jonathan shook his head. “Seems you take more after Evy than I thought.” He winked at Alex to make him know he was only being half serious; but Alex went on.

“Okay, I understand that he doesn’t want to lose me or –”

“Let me clear that up, Alex,” Jonathan interrupted, his voice low and serious for once. “It’s not that he ‘doesn’t want’ to. You know him, there’s not many things on earth he’s afraid of, but he’s scared out of his wits at the mere thought of losing one of you two. And that’s saying something, because your dad’s one of the bravest blokes I’ve ever known.”

Alex was silent for a moment, pondering his uncle’s words. Then his jaw clenched, and he looked away. “Uncle Jon?”

“Yes?”

“At Ahm Shere, I was – _I_ was scared to death when – when Mum…”

Jonathan felt a knot tighten in his chest; he shifted closer to his nephew and put an arm around him again. “I know. I was, too.”

After a whole week of deliberation, Rick and Evy accepted the government’s mission. And after another fourteen days of heated debates, Alex was allowed to go with his parents to Egypt, apparently thanks to the high marks he had received in school. But Jonathan suspected that this decision had a lot to do with his nephew’s ability to wear out any guardian when he didn’t want to be left out. Thankfully the boy had never tried his infamous tricks on him, a fact that made Evy wonder endlessly.

In the end, Evy and Rick officially broke the news about the trip to Jonathan; not wanting them to realise that he had known for almost a month, he feigned to be pleasantly surprised, and asked if they minded him going along for the ride. Evy accepted almost immediately, but Rick muttered something about the return of the whole O’Connell-Carnahan family to Egypt bringing down plagues and destruction upon the world.

So, after a surprisingly uneventful flight from London to Cairo, and an equally calm trip to their ‘old haunt’, as Jonathan liked to put it, they were settling down peacefully. The lack of major events so far had made Rick more relaxed, even if he still looked as if danger was about to bear down upon his family any time. But the fact remained that they were to stay in Egypt until the London and Cairo Museums agreed on several points which still needed to be discussed. Ah, the joys of bureaucracy.

Jonathan was jerked out of his train of thought when he finally felt the afternoon sun’s fantastic heat on his head and neck, and wished he had taken Evy’s advice to put on a hat. They had arrived the day before, and while Evy discussed the diamond case with the curator of the Museum of Antiquities, and Rick took Alex to see other things than desiccated corpses, Jonathan had sneaked out to take a stroll, and to try to find a fitting birthday present. Evy was a tricky one when it came to gifts; she didn’t seem to like flowers, trinkets or pretty dresses like other women Jonathan knew, but she was crazy about anything that reminded her of Egypt. It had been that way ever since she was old enough to know what she wanted, which had come very early indeed.

Maybe the best thing was to ask Rick what he would be giving her, and either get ideas or just contribute to the purchase, as he had done before. But that bothered him. After all, as his one and only sister, she _did_ deserve something special.

Quite lost in his thoughts this time, he barely registered that he was walking past the Museum before somebody knocked into him, hard enough for both of them to crumple, breathless, on the ground. It took Jonathan thirty seconds to get his lungs in working order again and, instinctively, check his pockets for anything missing.

“So sorry I bumped into you, mate, didn’t mean to,” came the voice of the attacker. Jonathan’s eyes widened at the sound of this voice and he squinted up at its owner.

“Tommy? Is that you? Tommy Ferguson?”

The fellow shook his head, still looking a bit dazed; then his own eyes, round and brown, went even rounder as he stared at Jonathan. “Jon! What the hell are you doing ‘ere?”

“Glad to see you too, old chap,” laughed Jonathan, standing up and dusting himself off before offering a hand at the man on the ground, who accepted it gladly.

He hadn’t seen Tommy Ferguson since some time after the end of the war, what felt like ages ago. They’d made quite a pair at Oxford, the two of them – the scrawny, foppish Southerner with the quiet grin and the sticky fingers, and the broad-shouldered, round-faced Scouser with the laughing eyes and the deceptively innocent face. They’d got each other through Latin classes and rowing practice, got properly pickled on pub nights, and helped each other out of many a tight spot; they had shared everything, it seemed – books, cuffs and socks, even a flat for a while, not to mention a great many escapes when one of Jonathan’s bright ideas turned out to be not so brilliant after all. Oh, for the halcyon days of youth.

As soon as Tommy was on his feet he was wringing Jonathan’s hand with all the energy he’d been famous for as a boy. “Sorry, Jon, mate, I was a bit stunned –” After all these years, he still retained some of that accent, too! “– En’t everyday you bump into a pal from Oxford in the middle of Cairo! How’d you get here, for starters?”

“Well, I followed my sister,” Jonathan replied, grinning. In fifteen years or so, he had not realised how much he had actually missed this accent. “She’s giving a hand to the curator of the Museum of Antiquities – she’s something of an authority now, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh aye? That’s fantastic. I en’t forgotten how you’d talk about her, y’know. On and on and on. I’m curious to see what she looks like.”

Jonathan stole a glance at the entrance steps of the Museum, and turned to Tommy with a smirk. “Really? Well, if you really want to, I suppose I could…”

His sister had just appeared on the stairs, accompanied by the curator, an elderly man with greying hair and whiskers. Tommy followed Jonathan’s gaze and looked at them, goggling at Evy in particular.

“Jon – are my eyes mistaken, or is this gorgeous woman Doctor Evelyn O’Connell? I’ve read about her, she’s famous in my line of work… According to what I’ve read, she was one of the first people to make it out of the City of the Dead alive –”

Jonathan’s grin widened as he nodded. “Yes, that’d be her.”

Tommy rambled on as they walked closer to the stairs, “That’s bloody amazing! I thought she’d look, you know, like in the pictures in the paper, the bookish type with glasses – your typical Southern spinster,” he added with a wink. They waited for the curator to bid her goodbye, and Jonathan, greatly enjoying the situation, crept up on his sister to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hey there, old mum – how’s your day been?”

Evy started, then her expression shifted from slightly irked to a smile at her brother’s laugh. She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Jonathan, the things that amuse you…”

“You’re just miffed that I startled you. C’mon, I’d like you to meet someone – an admirer,” he added with a grin to Tommy, who stood there, his eyes wide. “Thomas Ferguson, an old school friend of mine. Tommy – Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell, my famous baby sister.”

Evy held out her hand, which Tommy grabbed and shook heartily. “So you’re the old scoundrel’s sister? No wonder he talked about you – though you don’t quite fit the description now…”

“What exactly did you tell your ‘school friends’ about me?” asked Evy, warning in her voice, though the twinkle in her eye did not quite disappear. Nevertheless, Jonathan preferred to ignore her question, earning a hard nudge in the ribs.

“So, what did you say your ‘line of work’ was?” he asked Tommy.

“Well – don’t laugh. I work at the British Consulate in Cairo, specialising in antique stuff. Oh, I’m sorry, Dr O’Connell,” he stammered with a glance at Evy who had an eyebrow raised, “I mean I’m one of the chief agents in the British Antique Research Department.”

“I’ve heard of you!” exclaimed Evy. “At least of that Research Department. They’re gradually cutting off public funds – encouraging individual financing – but that won’t do any good for scientific research! Such a stupid decision is only going to –”

“So you lot are the ones she kept fuming about for half a year!” Jonathan snorted. The infamous Ferguson rotten luck struck again.

Tommy looked dejected. Evy must have seen this, because she bit her lip and said, in softer tones, “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. But as my brother said, I’ve been… rather upset over this. There’s been some pressure on the British Museum lately by private patrons who threatened to pull out their funding on some… sensitive collections. Without the Crown to back us up, we might have to cave in to their ridiculous demands.”

“I’ll – I’ll tell my superiors about it,” said Tommy, still looking unsure. “See what I can do. I’m sure it won’t be much, but… Well. I’ll have tried.”

“That’s nice,” Evy said cheerfully, taking Jonathan’s arm and starting to walk. “Look, the two of you – I’ve had something of a rough day, so I’ll go home, if you don’t mind. You can –”

“Brilliant idea!” said Jonathan, flashing a grin at his sister. “I thought of going to the Sultan’s Casbah, but you might find it a tad – let’s say – dingy, my good friend.”

“Worse than the Turf?” Seeing Evy’s puzzled look, Tommy explained, “Sorry, private joke. I mean the Turf Tavern, that’s where I saw him for the first time. Me family didn’t ‘ave much money, so I used to work there to pay for my studies. Very nice pub, didn’t deserve the reputation.”

“I’m sure you did indeed see a lot of my brother there,” Evy slipped in slyly. Jonathan threw a mock glare at her.

“To think you are almost my only family. What a shame.” Then, as Tommy looked uncertain, he added, “Carry on, Tom.”

“All right. So I was one of the only students who needed a job, and there were some others who thought that it was – how’d they put it? – a ‘disgrace’ to our university.”

“Preposterous,” said Evy sternly. “As if money could take you further than talent.”

Jonathan bit back on the cynical comment that crossed his mind. Sometimes Evy’s naïveté baffled him.

“Right,” said Tommy uncertainly, glancing at Jonathan. “So, one day, a little bunch of lads come in, and Jon here was sometimes hanging with ‘em at the time –”

Evy glared at Jonathan in advance, and he threw his hands in the air. “Don’t look at me like that! I haven’t done anything!” Evy’s gaze softened, and Jonathan finished, “…Yet.”

That earned him a playful slap on the arm, and a laugh from Tommy, who went on, “Anyway, one of the blokes orders somethin’ or other, and starts to poke fun at me. Well, I was used to it, so I let them be. Then they continued, and I finally noticed that skinny lad in the corner who was makin’ fun of them _for making fun __of__ me_. Didn’t quite understand what the hell was going on – oh, sorry, Dr O’Connell – what was happening.”

Evy smiled. “You’ll have to watch your mouth in front of my son, but otherwise it’s fine. And please, call me Evelyn.”

Tommy beamed. “Right, uh, Evelyn. So, uh –”

“What he didn’t know at that point,” interrupted Jonathan, “was that I had my eye on that fellow – what’s his name – Farbow. He owed me quite a bit of money, but wouldn’t repay me. So I was looking for a way to get him back for it.”

“And get the rest of his wallet in the process, of course.”

“Evy, he owed me seventeen pounds. And he was not what I’d call a ‘decent bloke’ – nasty, disdainful piece of work he was, and his little friends with him. Always a dirty word about the Scouser who worked at the Turf Tavern, just because he didn’t belong to his snobby little world. I did the community a favour, really.”

“Don’t push it, Jonathan,” warned Evy.

Tommy carried on. “Well, I was glad there was at least one person who didn’t think like Edwin Farbow – nice change. Then Farbow said something – I don’t remember what it was about, I just remember it made me really angry, _really_. An’ it’s not a pretty sight when I’m _really_ angry at someone.”

Jonathan remembered, but thought it wise to keep his mouth shut.

“An’ – an’ I just lost it, y’know? I dropped his tea over his ‘ead –”

“I say, that one was pretty funny,” Jonathan said, smiling widely at the memory. The strangled yelp that had followed had definitely been one of the best parts.

“So they all leaped for me, obviously – began to punch me, the five or six of them – hey, I still managed to get back at them!” Tommy added quickly, as if defending his honour. Evy hid a smile, and it occurred to Jonathan that that last sentence had something very Rick-like about it. “But I en’t a fool. I know a losing fight when I’m in one.”

“Don’t tell me. Jonathan bravely threw himself into the fight to take on as many attackers as possible.” There was mischievous laughter in Evy’s voice, and her eyes were twinkling. If anyone other than her had quipped that way about him, Jonathan would probably have taken offence, or at least pretended to. But they knew each other enough not to cross the line.

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Well, that wasn’t quite Jon’s style – I don’ know, might’ve changed since then. But yeah, he did. One moment I was squashed under five or six, the next I found out we were two on the floor.”

Evy began to laugh. “Why, Jonathan? _My_ Jonathan, in a fight, for someone he barely knew?”

At that Jonathan cleared his throat, a mite embarrassed. “I told you, I was looking for Farbow’s wallet. That was the perfect diversion – you should’ve seen that twit looking in every corner for his lost wallet afterwards. It was three months before he gave up.” _And it’s lucky you didn’t see _me_ then. I was a bloody mess_. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing.” Evy smiled. “You never told me that.”

“Should I have?”

“I don’t know, it’s – it was nice of you to do that, even for the wrong reasons. I’m proud of you.”

Jonathan felt an unexpected lump rise in his throat. Not a very big one, but enough to keep him from talking for a few seconds. It was always like this whenever she said something really nice to him. It caught him off guard each and every time.

After a little while, Evy stopped in front of a door and announced, “Well, we’re home.”

“Nice house,” commented Tommy, taking in the sand-coloured neat front and the curtains at the windows.

“Our ‘old haunt’ since the family moved to Egypt,” Jonathan said, opening the door and stepping aside to let his sister in. “Evy wasn’t even walking then.”

“I do believe I was,” Evy protested.

Jonathan snorted. “Oh, you weren’t. You _crawled_.”

Evy seemed to resist the urge to slap her brother and walked into the living room, her nose in the air. She was greeted by two simultaneous voices:

“Mum!”

“Hey, hon.”

Jonathan waited a few seconds, then walked into the room in turn, and grinned at the sight of his nephew looking genuinely eager to see him. He was not fooled, however – as soon as Evy wasn’t looking, Alex mouthed the words “Got one?” and frowned as his uncle shook his head. No, he still had no present for Mum’s birthday.

“Uncle Jon? Who’s that?”

“Who, him?” Jonathan pointed at Tommy behind him, looking uncomfortable at the family reunion, and Alex rolled his eyes. “Tom Ferguson, he was in class with me at Oxford. I ran into him by chance today.”

Tommy stepped past Jonathan and held out his hand to Alex, nearest to him. “Hi – glad to meet you. Jon’s nephew, eh?”

“Yeah,” said Alex, eyeing him with all the suspicion of a ten-year-old who’d seen what he had seen. Behind him, Rick’s eyes spoke loads about his own distrust. But mistrust towards Jonathan and everything related was par for the course on his part, and, admittedly, reasonable.

“Thomas Ferguson, British Antique Research Department,” said Tommy, holding out a hand towards Rick, who shook it slowly, still reluctant.

“Rick O’Connell.”

“So you’re Dr O’Connell’s husband? Pleasure to meet you, sir. I’m impressed, you’ve no idea.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “Impressed?”

“It seems I’m rather famous in the Research Department,” said Evy, laughing.

“Make that infamous,” quipped Jonathan.

“The Department owes your wife a great deal. She was the one who uncovered a huge amount of our information about some obscure periods of Egyptian history, as well as the major part of serious knowledge we’ve got on Hamunaptra,” Tommy pointed out, and Evy blushed. “She’s a legend – one of the original three who managed to go to Hamunaptra and live to tell the tale! But… I assume you’re another one?”

“Yeah,” said Rick, looking a bit nonplussed. Jonathan definitely didn’t regret bringing Tommy in. Seeing Rick O’Connell confused was a very rare occurrence, too rare to be missed.

“I never knew – who was the third one?”

Jonathan was now struggling to keep a straight face. Rick blinked, and pointed at his brother-in-law. “That was him.”

“You!?” God, the look on his face was priceless. “_You_ were at Hamunaptra?”

“Yes,” risked Jonathan, laughter rising in his voice. “And believe me, it wasn’t exactly a picnic. Oh, by the way, there were four of us, not three.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Rick roll his eyes and grinned, undaunted. This was proving to be a fun evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1937 was a conscious choice on my part, and so was the choice to make it two years after Ahm Shere. I know that in the film we clearly see the caption _THEBES – 1933_, but 1935 is the date at the back of the DVD and at the back of the novelisation. Besides, in the film, Red (the bald-ish one of the three thugs) states that the events of TM happened "nine years ago", and Alex is eight. I'm not good at maths, but I chose to trust it nonetheless. There are other explanations to the date goofs, both Doylist and Watsonian, and this is mine.
> 
> Hope you liked/will like!


	2. Familiar Faces

“So that’s your office? I must say, I’m impressed, old boy.”

“Knock it off, Jon.”

The room was tiny and rather stuffy, and Jonathan had to wait a while before Tommy could find a spare chair, in this case a collapsible with a cloth back. The mess was indeed impressive – you couldn’t see even a little bit of desk under all the huge, dusty files lying on it and all the loose sheets. All around the desk, the path was more or less cleared, but you still had to be extra careful not to step on books and files of varying shapes and sizes. The whole floor was cluttered up by cardboard boxes, some still held shut by adhesive tape, most of them open; as Jonathan peeped into one, he saw various items wrapped in protective paper.

Despite the messy aspect, Tommy’s office gave an overall cheerful impression, helped by the sunlight pouring in through the window, high up the wall. Dust danced in the rays and didn’t seem to be willing to settle anywhere.

“Sorry for the shambles, mate,” said Tommy, rummaging through the papers on his desk and starting to tidy everything up. “They made me move in here only a week ago, I haven’t had time to clean it all up.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve seen worse.”

Tommy’s head shot up from the desk, glancing sheepishly at Jonathan. “Y’know, when I told your sister I was one of the chief agents… Well, I might have overstated the thing a lil’ bit.”

“No! You’re not serious, are you?”

Tommy growled at Jonathan’s smirk, and Jonathan fell silent, letting his eyes wander here and there. They finally came to rest upon the only thing that seemed tidy enough – a dozen old-looking books resting on a set of shelves.

Jonathan left his chair to get a proper look. Some of the books came directly from the British Museum, and looked as if they were borrowed from the archives – old and worn, with leather covers slightly frayed along the edges. Not to mention the dust. And they smelt like escapees from the City of the Dead.

“I say, that’s some collection you’ve got yourself here,” said Jonathan amazed as he read the date of print of a particularly shabby-looking one. “My God… Evy would go _spare_ if she saw this.”

“I’m sure she would,” Tommy said, emerging from the layers of paper and straightening himself up. “I just love these kinds of old books, you know; there’s a feeling about them you just don’t get with more – ‘recent’ ones. Now, where’d I put that bloody –”

“Looking for something in particular?”

“Yes,” Tommy sighed as he dropped on his chair, only to jump up and remove something before sitting down. “I’m sure what little I’ve got on Hamunaptra is lying ‘round somewhere in a folder – can’t seem to find it.”

Jonathan put the book he was holding back on its shelf and looked at the desk, his hands in his pockets. “No wonder.”

“Oh, that’s gonna help for sure, Jon,” muttered Tommy. Jonathan was about to retort something when his eyes stopped on a small picture on the desk. It was the framed photograph of a woman he recognised quickly enough: the freckled face with a round nose and pointy chin, the mass of frizzy hair and the sweet, candid smile could only belong to one person.

“Hey! Isn’t that our own Elizabeth McAllister?”

An uneasy sort of smile crept up on Tommy’s lips. “Yes, that’s her – ‘cept her last name hasn’t been McAllister for some time now.”

Jonathan stared at him blankly for a full minute. Now this, of all things, was unexpected.

“You mean, she’s – _you’re_ –”

Tommy nodded, still smiling.

“How long –?”

“That’ll make it twelve years in October.”

There was a moment’s silence, during which this piece of news sank in. Elizabeth McAllister had been a cousin of a common friend, Arthur McAllister – a tall, gangly fellow with glasses constantly perched on the bridge of a long nose, rather absent-minded but altogether likeable. She was a year older than them, and went to Somerville. Jonathan and Tommy (who were quite inseparable by that point) had spent the second half of their first year pretending to woo her, with her entire approval as it deflected her family’s pressure on her shoulders about finding a suitor.

Lizzie had been kind-hearted and shy, somewhat sheltered, and definitely not as courted as she deserved to be; she was a smart girl, sweet, and funny when she wanted to. And they used to make her laugh – she had a nice laugh.

Months of light-hearted fun had gone by, followed by about a year or two somewhat less light-hearted when most of their friends went out to war and they didn’t, choosing to finish their degree instead. 

This happy era had ended when Lizzie had joined up as a nurse in late 1915. Unlike Tommy, with whom Jonathan had managed to keep in contact until he and Evy had moved to Egypt half a dozen years later, she had seemed – to all intents and purposes – to vanish, swallowed whole by history.

Perhaps, if he had been the marrying kind, or a little more reckless and a little smarter, he could have got serious about it and asked for her hand. But twenty years old had seemed ridiculously young to get married, and after the war Jonathan had made it his business to be as carefree as he could to make up for 1917 and 1918. Problem was, he was now forty-one, and most people that age were supposed to be settled. Evy was younger than him, and Rick and her had been married for eleven years now. And Tommy and Lizzie, having found each other again, had been together for a dozen years, and he had a picture of her on his desk. Why, they must even have children.

If it’d been anyone else, Jonathan might have been jealous, but he just couldn’t be. The memories, pleasant though they were, belonged in the past. Tommy was a decent fellow, Lizzie a nice girl; they deserved each other. He had had his chance, lost it, and there was no getting back what wasn’t anymore. Petty jealousy was simply irrelevant there.

“That’s great news, old chap,” he finally said, with a heartfelt smile. “Congratulations. Wish I could have seen you in a morning suit, though.”

Tommy beamed in return, obviously relieved, and Jonathan felt a pang of annoyance. Did Tommy really think that he was going to be mad at him for _that_?

“Thanks, Jon. You know, that… that means somethin’.”

Dammit. It was still impossible to be thoroughly annoyed with Thomas Ferguson. He may retain his rotten luck, but he still had that innocent look on his broad face that fooled even the most sceptical of all. Even one Jonathan Carnahan.

A somewhat awkward silence passed. Jonathan was glad to end it when he spotted a folder under his chair and bent to take it for a closer look. “Here – wasn’t that the one you were looking for?”

The file was very thick, with a hard cover, and it was held shut by an old belt. On a little bit of yellowish paper was scribbled, ‘Hamunaptra, City of the Dead – Reign of Seti the First, Dynasty XIX.’

Tommy crossed the room in two strides and all but snatched the file from Jonathan’s hands. “That’s it! That’s the one.” His old enthusiasm was back in his voice. “I haven’t looked at it in years, guess it’s been buried under a ton of other things.”

“You can keep it if you want. It’s not _that_ urgent, Evy can wait a bit.”

“No, take it – just be sure to give it back before tonight, someone could ask for it… Though nobody’s asked for it in years, so I can’t see why someone would just now. Except for Hamilton, but even him –”

“Hamilton?”

“Charles Hamilton, my immediate superior. Odd guy, very thorough, very _clean_. Might be a very likeable fellow if someone took the umbrella off his arse, but that’s just my opinion… Well. Fact is, I’m not really supposed to show that file to anyone, but as it’s you and Dr O’Connell…”

Jonathan couldn’t help but chortle. Tommy looked at him curiously.

“What’re you laughin’ at?”

“Oh, nothing, really – just the whole ‘Doctor O’Connell’ business. Funny thing to hear someone speaking in so high terms about my baby sister… especially you.”

Tommy shrugged and said with a grin, “Well, get used to it. Seriously, mate, I’ve heard of her since I was offered this job at the Research Department, and that was, what – ten years ago or so. Discovering Hamunaptra wasn’t such a big deal, I bet loads of people must’ve managed that in centuries past, poor buggers, but –”

Jonathan, whose first sight of the ancient City had been the skeletons and dried-up corpses of previous adventurers, gave a grim smile. _Yes, indeed. Loads._

“– But she, her husband and… and _you_ actually got out. Remind me to ask you how you did it someday, ‘cause I still have trouble believing it.”

“I bet you haven’t heard half of the story,” said Jonathan as a sly smile sneaked back on his lips.

“I hope you’ll tell me some time, then. This and that weird stuff with the Scorpion King two years ago.”

Jonathan opened his mouth, quite taken aback. “How d’you know about that, for cripes’ sake?”

“We, Mr Carnahan, know everything,” Tommy said with a mock smug grin, which he then dropped to finish, sounding almost embarrassed, “Well, not quite everything, I guess. In fact there’s still some huge blanks in the story.”

“Blanks you’d like me to fill, eh?” Jonathan chuckled. “I get it, Tommy old chap. I’d tell you the whole story anytime.”

Tommy’s right eyebrow shot up. “Anytime? That would include now?”

“Didn’t you say you had work to do?”

“‘Work to do’? Man, this _is_ what I work on! Gathering pieces of information, I mean. Can I take notes?”

“Yes, sure,” said Jonathan, a little bit dumbfounded. “All right, you’d better take a seat, because this is going to be long…”

* * *

“And you told him the whole story of what happened at Ahm Shere?”

“And Hamunaptra, too. He already knew the main lines, anyway.”

Evelyn shook her head. Jonathan could be a wonderful brother at times, but one of his major faults was and always had been his complete inability to keep a secret the way it should remain – secret.

“I can’t believe you did that, Jonathan.”

“Oh, come on Evy, please trust me on this one, will you? Tommy’s reliable. He’s a decent bloke.”

His blue eyes were almost pleading, and Evelyn found her anger ebbing. The only times he had proved so persuasive were when he tried to cover up for one of Alex’s most foolish stunts. Though she could never admit it, such an attitude was very endearing, in a cheeky, annoyingly efficient sort of way.

Then there was this file. She couldn’t decently stay mad at him when he had been thoughtful enough to borrow it for her from this Ferguson fellow. And to tell the truth, she was positively dying to see what it contained. She couldn’t wait to get home to open it.

“Jonathan, it’s very touching to see you standing up for a friend, but you must admit that so far, the people you have entrusted with our, ah – family secrets – haven’t proved very ‘reliable’, have they?”

“Tommy is, Evy. I swear. And he works for the British Consulate, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Oh…” Evelyn sighed, about to give in, “if only this was a guarantee of safety…”

“Just because What’s-his-name of the British Museum woke our mummy again and bollixed things up last time doesn’t mean Tommy’s not ‘safe’, old mum. Please –” and there he stopped her in her tracks and looked at her in the eye, “– believe me.”

_Aw, dash it…_ It was still impossible to remain angry with him. She never could resist this unique mix of fake innocence, thoughtless cheekiness, and sincerity somewhere in the middle.

“All right, all right – quit pestering me, and I won’t bother you about this Mr Ferguson anymore.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, that’s a promise.”

Jonathan’s ‘persuader’ expression turned into a dangerous smile, one that his sister knew only too well. As a rule, it meant trouble was on the way. 

“That’s nice, Evy, because I asked him if he wanted to see the diamond while it’s still here in Cairo –” 

No exception to the rule today, it seemed. Evelyn was flabbergasted, but she said nothing… She had promised, after all. 

“– And we agreed that a few minutes wouldn’t hurt, and it’s still my diamond in a way, a little – I mean, I know I sold it and everything, but I haven’t looked at it in ages and –” 

Evelyn let him talk until he ran out of words and finished on a rather lame, “And, well, I – I was hoping you could intercede on my behalf, you see…” 

“You don’t have to ask _me_,” she said in a deliberately colder voice. “You’ll have to see the curator for that. I wish you good luck convincing him.” 

Jonathan’s face dropped. 

“Evy, please! You’re my sister! I’ve hardly ever seen this bloke, you’re –” 

“I’m far more gullible, is that what you meant to say?” 

“No, it’s not – that’s – cripes, Evy, all I’m asking for is two words to the curator from you. Consider it payback for Tommy, he might’ve got into trouble lending you this secret file for the afternoon.” 

_The file. _ She’d almost forgotten it. Although Jonathan’s last sentence sounded a little like emotional blackmail, ugly as the word was, Ferguson had indeed seemed pleasant enough the day before. There was a cultured man, with a proper job – something of a change from the dubious company Jonathan usually kept – who respected and admired her work. She hadn’t heard praise such as he’d given her in quite a long time. And he trusted her enough to lend her this file.

“Well,” she said eventually, very slowly and reluctantly, “I suppose I could talk Dr Hakim into letting the two of you in the diamond’s room… Not alone, of course, and only for a few moments. I’ll see tomorrow if –”

She started when her brother kissed her on the cheek, beaming.

“Dear, sweet Evy, you’re the best sister any decent fellow would ever dream of.”

“Oh, come off it,” sighed Evelyn, who couldn’t help but smile all the same. 

They found the house empty: Rick had taken Alex to the bazaar downtown. Evelyn quickly sat down on the sofa and carefully put the file on the coffee table in front of her, while Jonathan disappeared into the kitchen. She didn’t wait for him and opened the folder.

It contained mainly sheet after sheet of paper covered in tiny scrawl, and as she ran her eye over them she could tell it was a report of sorts, with dates, names, and more or less precise directions. There were newspaper cuttings, some of them quite old, and also some sepia photographs. She was leafing through them when Jonathan put a cup of tea on the table and sat beside her, a tumbler in his hands.

“So? Have you dug some stuff up already?”

“I guess so, yes… I didn’t know Lord Carnavon had worked on Hamunaptra as well…”

“Good thing he kept it quiet, one curse as cause of death is well enough – didn’t need two,” quipped Jonathan. Evelyn elbowed him and picked up another set of pictures. Her brother’s eyes widened.

“Evy, that’s – that’s us!”

He was right. Though the photographs were old, blurred, and of rather bad quality, the figures on it were unmistakable. They must have been taken shortly after Hamunaptra, because Evelyn saw some shots of Jonathan with his left arm in a sling, and several of herself and Rick, arm in arm, both their faces shining with sun and laughter. She remembered how it was, back then – the slight awkwardness between them, the happiness fluttering in her stomach each time his hand brushed against her, even by accident; it had seemed to her that she was constantly walking on a little cloud, inches above the ground, silly as this comparison may sound.

Of course, she had got down from this cloud long ago – but reality had not been as harsh as her school friends had once told her. Rick was a wonderful husband, and there was never a second of boredom between them. Even after eleven years of marriage, he still took every opportunity to seduce her. Not in the romantic, literary way, with tête-à-têtes and candlelight, but something in the way he looked at her over the table, the twinkle in his eye that was for her and her alone never failed to make her melt. And after all these years, he still managed to make her blush, too. Of course, she protested, saying that it was absolutely ridiculous for a thirty-six year old woman to blush; but he’d just laugh softly, his rich chuckle sending shivers down her spine and making her feel as if she were twenty-five again.

Jonathan often said some people were born lucky. Hers was another kind of luck – she may not have a ‘proper’ social life like acquaintances of hers in London had, but the four men of her life, namely Rick, Alex, Jonathan, and Ardeth – in a very slightly lesser extent, as she saw him fairly rarely – were the four people she loved most, and they were wonderful. Lady Maria Evans and her circle of snobby friends would never know how it felt to die and being brought back to life by her eight-year-old son and her brother. She would never know the overwhelming smell of gunpowder, the ache you get in your shoulder from the recoil, the deafening noise, how it felt to be kissed awake by a three-thousand-years old mummy – but then, had Evelyn been able to, she would have gladly skipped this part. Ew.

“I say, Evy, do you think they’ll mind if we took a couple of photos to put them into frames?”

Jonathan’s voice drew her back from the memories, and she looked at the pictures in her brother’s hands. There was another one or two of Rick and her, one of the three of them – in the streets of Cairo, by the look of it – and a full-length one of Jonathan alone, his hands in his pockets, his nose in the air, and a curious look on his face. There was something funny and rather sweet about this one which matched the involuntary subject’s general attitude: offhand, ironic, foppish, forgetful, but altogether loyal and kind. Evelyn was indeed tempted to keep it, as Jonathan had suggested.

“I agree that some of those would be worth it,” she said, smiling. “But maybe you’d better ask your friend first –”

An odd thought crossed her mind at the mention of Tom Ferguson. When she had met him the day before, he had clearly shown that he didn’t know Jonathan had been a part of the Hamunaptra expedition. But it just would have taken a look at the contents of this file to know that his former schoolmate had been involved – his full name was written in black and white, and the photographs were faithful enough. Besides, Jonathan had not changed _that_ much over the years.

“Jonathan, I’ve just thought of something – Tom knows this file, does he? I mean, you told me he’s been working in the Department for ages, so he must have read it at some point, right?”

“I suppose so, yes. And your point is?”

“Well, perhaps I’m just being silly, but why didn’t he know you were at Hamunaptra? Your name and your face are all over these papers, look…”

Jonathan frowned slightly, and bent to look at the sheet she held out for him. There was an account of that night so long ago in the Sultan’s Casbah that had started it all, and it was just as Rick had told her when she had asked how her sticky-fingered brother had managed to steal his puzzle box.

“Whoa, Evy… there’s a fair amount of details in there.” She saw his eyes dart from the top to the bottom of the sheet; then he exclaimed, “Oh, of course! That Casbah barman, what’s his name again… Oh yes, Musa. I bet he was the one who gave them such a precise account. Can’t believe he still held that grudge after –” he looked at the top of the sheet again “– two years. Resentful git. It was only a _little_ fight.”

Evelyn didn’t know what made her insist, but she ignored his last remark and continued. “You see? He could hardly miss you. And yet he seemed to ignore completely your part in the trip to and from Hamunaptra. By the way, my name was Carnahan at the time, not O’Connell. I don’t understand why he looked so surprised to see that his famous Dr O’Connell and your bossy little sister were in fact one single person – it’s just not logical.”

There was a short silence, during which Jonathan seemed to ponder her words. Then he turned to face her, and to her surprise, there was something like anger in his voice when he said, “You’re really something, you know, Evy. Stubborn as a mule, I’d say. I told you Tommy was a decent fellow, I mean – you met him, he’s not some sort of conman or something!”

“I’m not saying he is, Jonathan,” Evelyn said gently; she had not expected this kind of resistance at all. “I’m merely pointing out a fact. You must admit that it does look a bit odd, doesn’t it?”

“Well, don’t point. Fact is, you can’t admit that I know someone that you don’t, who’s smart, trustworthy, who works in the same stuff as you, and who also happens to be a damn good fellow to drink with.”

Evelyn raised her eyebrows. “What exactly are you talking about?”

“Just what I’ve said. Leave him alone. I don’t understand why you’re nagging about him. Besides, Tommy adores you – you should hear the way he praises you to the skies.”

“I’m not nagging. Honestly, Jonathan, from the little I’ve seen of him, I like him well enough – he seems to be good company, a funny, cultured, clever fellow. And I’m flattered to hear that he thinks so highly of me. But rationally and logically speaking, there are some tiny details that bother me.”

She had spoken and chosen her words carefully, not wanting to start a row. She hated being at odds with her brother when he wasn’t the one who had started it – it made her feel uneasy and oddly guilty. He had been her only family for a long time, after all, and neither was likely to forget it. They shared something special.

Anger faded from the bright blue eyes, and Jonathan’s expression turned into something that looked remarkably like a pout.

“Can’t you just leave these out for me?”

Evelyn almost laughed. “I won’t say I’ll forget it, but I won’t pester you about it anymore. Just – I know I’ll sound silly again, but don’t be angry with me for that. I don’t like it at all when you are.”

This time, the usual smile was back on her brother’s face, and he sank back into the sofa, his half-empty glass still in his hands. “Ah, come on, Evy – that was silly indeed… You sounded like a kid. Don’t worry, I’m not angry with you… I’m just annoyed that the one time I haven’t done anything, and I mean _anything_, you still find a way to be suspicious.”

_Of course, when you put it that way…_ Evelyn could understand Jonathan’s touchiness, and respected his faith in his friend, but still. It was only a few minor things, but the logical, scientific part of her mind was puzzled. Of course, it could just be that Tom Ferguson had a bad memory – she had never seen a folder so dusty, so she supposed he really hadn’t opened it in a _long_ time… She’d find a way to chat about it with him some time. Casually, of course, in passing.

Maybe it was her instinct. Or maybe it was just her curiosity. That particular trait had been said many times to run in the family, and Evelyn was forced to recognise that it had proved true in many occasions.

Especially when it came to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a _lot_ of fun writing scenes with Evy and Jonathan. I absolutely love their interaction in TM, and it was something I missed slightly when I watched TMR. When I write them I can’t help writing with my memories of TM in mind. It’s also fun to imagine Evy, having grown from the girl she is in TM into the self-assured, brilliant woman, wife, and mother, inches from running the British Museum in TMR, being childish enough to bicker with her brother. Both Carnahan siblings are big goofs in their own way, Evy just hides it better :P


	3. Right Ground for Trouble

“Oh no, please, Rick, not you too!”

Rick began to laugh. Why did people talk so much about boredom within married couples? Eleven years, and Evy still managed to amaze him. In more ways than one.

“Look, honey, I don’t mean to follow the pack or anything, but you truly see mysteries everywhere. And you know what? I was wrong.”

“Were you?” Evelyn seemed pleased, then puzzled. “About what?”

“You don’t just attract trouble. You create most of it as well.”

He had to chuckle at the look on his wife’s face. Then he pulled her close and kissed her to let her know he was joking. For all of her qualities, Evelyn still had some problems catching onto Rick’s humour at times. Rather funny, considering everything he had heard about the famous British sense of humour.

She eventually smiled, and the dark room was silent for a short while. Her head was lying on the pillow right next to his face, and he almost had his nose in her dark hair. The scent of it had changed ever so slightly since they had left London; it was now a bit headier, deeper, and reminded him of sand, stupid as that sounded. The thought that he had come to love the smell of sand made him smile inwardly. He’d have to tell her that, some day. In the meantime, he let his eyes wander up and down her body, and wondered at the feeling growing in him as he gazed at those attractive curves. Before Evelyn, Rick had never truly had a real home, and had not really been looking for one anyway. By finding her, he had found out that he didn’t need a big house to settle in and everything; his home was simply wherever she was. Now this was a thought that he liked a lot.

Ah – his lingering gaze was beginning to make Evy blush. If that wasn’t an added bonus… She was so funny then, with her reddening cheeks, her bright eyes, and the way she bit her lip to keep herself from smiling. The fact that she generally failed delighted him, as his wife happened to be very cute in her unsuccessful attempts to suppress a smile.

“Well, Jonathan always said that there was a nosy streak in the family, but that I was the worst case he’d ever seen. Can you believe that?”

Her eyes demanded an answer from Rick. And he did answer, although he considered this particular moment in this particular place was maybe not best chosen to talk about his brother-in-law.

“Okay, coming from your brother that’s pretty funny, but you’re still the nosiest librarian I’ve ever met. That’s my own opinion about it, and you must admit there’s some ground in my judgement.”

“And _you_ ought to admit there’s some ground in my line of reasoning as well. I mean, think about it! Why pull the act of surprise while he really knew all along…”

“Knew what?”

“Who I – who we were, what we’ve done… After what I saw in that file, I’m even surprised he didn’t bring up Ardeth’s name.”

“It was in –?”

“Oh, yes. There were at least four pages about the Medjai tribe, from their role as Pharaoh’s bodyguards to the protection of the City of the Dead…”

“And Ardeth was mentioned personally?”

“I read his name three or four times. It seems that he was elected High Commander of the Medjai in 1932, barely a few years before the second Raising of Imhotep.”

Rick didn’t quite know what to say to that. The Medjai were a desert tribe, one of the most secret ones, and so far he had thought only a handful of people were aware of their existence. Especially in this ever-changing world where no one seemed to care much about mummies, ancient civilisations, dashing adventurers, and mysterious men guarding tombs. Most of the stuff he came across in London’s papers was more likely to involve shady political manoeuvres, arms races, treaties, or winning more gold in the next Olympics.

No wonder Rick felt slightly out of place sometimes.

“So, all this fussing about the first three folk to return from Hamunaptra –”

“All right, it might also be that he’s absent-minded, or that it’s really been _ages_ since he last looked into this file… Otherwise, yes. All of it would just be a front.”

Rick thought it over for a minute, and then pointed out, “You know, I value your argument and all, but are you aware that you’re probably making all this fuss about nothing at all? The guy seemed harmless enough to me – the only thing I was worrying about yesterday was that he looked ready to carry you off, even though you’re wearing this ring.”

To add more weight to his words, he gently took his wife’s left hand and kissed her third finger. Evy grinned at that, but let him finish, her eyes never leaving his face. They shone even more in the dark.

“Anyway, I hope your feelings about it are wrong, sweetheart.”

“Believe it or not, darling, so do I,” said Evelyn, nestling her head against his neck. “Much as I love being right, I wouldn’t like it very much if I really had reason to worry about Mr Ferguson. Jonathan looked a little upset this afternoon when I spoke to him about it.”

“You ‘spoke’ to him? Look, Lord knows your brother and I aren’t exactly the best of pals, but maybe that wasn’t the wisest thing to do.” Rick paused, then frowned slightly. “What did you tell him anyway?”

“Well, I merely pointed out a couple of details to him.”

“What kind of details?”

“For one thing, the fact that it was strange that Ferguson didn’t seem to know Jonathan had been to Hamunaptra. And also that he didn’t see any relation between Evelyn Carnahan and Dr Evelyn O’Connell. It wasn’t such a big deal, honestly.”

“Yeah.” Rick scratched his head. “How did he react?”

“Jonathan? He sounded – sort of angry. He sulked a little bit. I mean, he can be such a child about some things that it wasn’t really that surprising, but it was odd to see him overreact that way.”

Rick was quiet for a minute as he let his hand run from his wife’s shoulder to her hip. Of course, the thought of the warm skin underneath the nightdress sneaked into his mind and he tried to shut it off, keeping that for later. For the moment, he had something to tell Evelyn.

“Look, Evy… I’ll say this only once, so listen up. I understand your brother. If I’d met an old buddy of mine, and my sister insinuated shady stuff about him after seeing him only for an evening, I would’ve been pretty angry.”

“You don’t have a sister that I know of.”

“I know I don’t,” said Rick, rolling his eyes. “But that, Evelyn, my love, is not the point.”

It was her turn to frown slightly. In the dark, he saw her blink thoughtfully a few times. “So, your point is?”

“My point is, give it time. Don’t go ‘speaking’ more about that to Jonathan – you’ll never get a reasonable answer. Because that’s what you want, right?”

Evelyn let out a little laugh. “Yes, well, Jonathan’s not quite what I’d call ‘reasonable’ most of the time. I might’ve guessed that he wouldn’t be reasonable about that. He’s far too trusting, though – one of these days that’ll come back to bite him.”

“Your memory’s that bad? It already has. A number of times. God, choosing Mark Bellamy as poker partner…” Rick couldn’t help a snort. Bellamy was more of a cheat than Jonathan could ever dream to be, and that had caused his brother-in-law to lose quite spectacularly. He had just been lucky Bellamy was only a small-time hustler and not some gang leader.

Evy didn’t add anything, and Rick took the opportunity to crawl closer to her and say between kisses, “Sweetheart, why don’t we – forget about all that and – the rest? We can always talk about it – tomorrow. What d’you say?”

She eased herself among the pillows, and smiled before answering, “That’d be good, yes.”

One minute later, Rick had forgotten everything that was not exclusively Evelyn.

* * *

“I am positively surrounded by married couples.”

Tommy turned to Jonathan with an eyebrow raised, and Evy laughed softly. “Is it as bad as you make it sound?”

Jonathan snorted. “Oh, no. It’s worse. See that chap over here?” He pointed to Tommy, who looked surprised. “He told me yesterday that he married a common friend twelve years ago. So he’s turned sides. Lousy traitor.”

Tommy grinned, getting the joke.

“Really?” Evy’s voice was polite, but there was a definite pleasure in it as well. “Congratulations, Mr Ferguson. About the happy event, but also for not turning out a complete scoundrel, like my brother here.”

They were walking to the Museum – Evy had kept her promise, and arranged an interview with Dr Hakim, the curator. Despite the overwhelming heat – it was three in the afternoon – Jonathan felt quite thrilled about this interview. He was going to see the diamond, for the first time in almost two years, and show it off to Tommy, who had never seen it. Of course, it was a bit of a drag not being able to touch it – not to mention taking it with him – but that was something already.

“What is your wife’s name?”

“Elizabeth, we met when the three of us were students in Oxford. She’s in our home in Dorset right now. She works for the telephone company, couldn’t get time off to follow me here.”

Evy slowed down her pace to be level with Jonathan, and looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, now that I think of it, you’ve never, ever brought up the subject of marriage…”

“That’s because I happen to enjoy my life as a happily debauched bachelor, thank you very much,” said Jonathan, sarcastic. Why did so many people seem to be obsessed with marriage? He just couldn’t see the point.

“I’m sure you do,” she retorted in the same tone of voice. “And that’s too bad, really, because I think I would’ve liked being an aunt.”

Jonathan opened his mouth to reply something, but she was quicker. “Of course, there’s also the fact that I don’t think any sane woman would want to share her life with you the way things are right now. As I know you, you’d be picking her pockets in less than three days.”

Right. Now Jonathan was fuming. “Now listen here, you –”

“I know, I have no right to speak to you like that – I’ll probably be regretting it for the rest of the day, but be that as it may, I’m married, to a wonderful person, and I have a wonderful son. Remember how Mrs Pemberton used to rant on and on about how the blood would be dying with us, because you were a rascal and I was turning spinster. Jonathan, I found someone – why don’t you try and search, some day?”

Evy had stopped in the middle of the pavement at some point of her speech, and was now staring at him in a way that made him look away. She would not move until she’d got an answer, he knew her well enough to be aware of that. Careful to avoid glancing at Tommy, who was standing a few feet ahead of them pretending he wasn’t seeing nor hearing anything, he waited to let his anger cool off a little and snapped, “Now look. Don’t mix things up. I’m not you – I’m not even like you. I like my life just as it is, and I’m sure _you_ like your life the way it is as well. I’m not marrying some girl just to please you, so it’s no use to badger me about that, all right? If, by extraordinary chance, I happen to change my mind on the subject, you’ll be the first to know, I swear. ‘Til that day, please, I’ll kindly ask you to shut up about it.”

Evy looked dumbfounded, and a little hurt, as Jonathan noticed with a slight pang of conscience. He hated to see his baby sister hurt, especially when he was the one who had caused it. With a sigh, he took her by the arm and started walking again.

“Come on, don’t be offended – you’re the one who brought up the subject, remember? And in such a subtle way, too.”

She said nothing, and when he looked over at Tommy, he noticed that his friend’s shoulders were hunched, as if he was still waiting for the storm to pass.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry I said that. Just – forget about it, will you?” _Cripes_. His one and only sister, and he still didn’t know what to say when he’d upset her. “Besides, you’re a great mum and all, but you don’t know, maybe you’d be terrible as an aunt.” Ah, he thought he caught something flicker over his sister’s face. So he pressed on, of course. “Right, try to imagine _me_ as a dad. Now if that doesn’t make you laugh…” Hooray! Victory was at hand – Evy had that strained half-smile she gave when she had her mind set on not smiling. Jonathan had seen this expression directed at him quite a number of times when they were younger; now, it occurred mostly when Alex was trying to make it up to his mum after a prank gone wrong. If there was something the boy took after his uncle, it was the ability to talk himself out of tricky situations. But Jonathan wasn’t sure if the knack for getting himself _into_ these situations in the first place came from Evy or himself.

As they came into view of the Museum, he whispered in his sister’s ear, “Well, if you’re really _that_ mad at me, let’s go find that bloody Book of the Dead, raise a mummy or two, and save the world again – you could let steam off, and I could make it up to you by… doing the best I can.”

That made Evy’s eyes dart up to him, and he was immensely glad to see a genuine smile finally dawn on her face. “Like you did last time?”

Jonathan scratched the back of his neck. He looked briefly at his sister, gave an embarrassed grin, and turned to look ahead at the entrance of the Museum of Antiquities. “Ah… yes. Like last time.”

Evelyn gave her brother’s arm a very slight squeeze, and her smile stayed on. Tommy grinned at him, and Jonathan grinned back. Too bad that the bloke never had a baby sister; he didn’t know the wonderful feeling of victory one could get simply by getting a smile from his sister after a tiff like that.

The curator was in his office, waiting for them in front of his desk, which was rather exceptional – Dr Fahad Hakim was not the sort of man who liked to wait for anyone. He was a thin man, of average height, with thick pepper-and-salt hair. Jonathan saw his small black eyes narrow at the sight of them, and was instantly reminded of how very uncomfortable the fellow made him feel each time he saw him. The ancient Medjai legacy must include the beady, steady stare that was one of Ardeth’s specialities.

“Dr O’Connell. Right on time, as always.” Evy was acknowledged with a polite smile that unveiled white teeth. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing pleasant about the way Hakim shifted his glance from sister to brother, though the tone remained polite. “Mr Carnahan.” How on earth had his sister managed to persuade this dragon to let him stand four feet away from the diamond, he would never begin to guess.

Jonathan gulped discreetly, and refrained himself from taking a step backwards, intent on keeping what little dignity he had left. Tommy looked at him quizzically.

“Dr Hakim?” Best to leave the entire public relation job to Evy. She was easily the best at that – far better than he and Rick. “May I introduce Mr Thomas Ferguson, from the British Antiques Research Department – I talked to you about him yesterday.”

“I certainly remember you doing so. Good afternoon, Mr Ferguson,” said Dr Hakim, extending a hand to Tommy, who shook it in a pretty different way than he had shook Jonathan’ and Evy’s. Evy had drilled him on proper behaviour. Officer training had nothing on Evelyn O’Connell once she got a good lecture going.

“I’m honoured, Doctor. How do you do?” Tom’s voice was polite and even – it seemed to surprise Evy, and it sure surprised her brother. Hell, how could he tone down that accent of his at will?

The curator looked pleasantly surprised, too – ever so slightly – as he nodded his appreciation. Then he left his desk and walked over to the door. “Dr O’Connell, gentlemen – shall we proceed?”

The three of them left Hakim’s office and walked down the corridor, Evelyn, Hakim and Tommy in the lead, discussing animatedly some dynasty of Pharaohs. Jonathan trailed behind, idly gazing around him at the old stone walls, grateful for the change in temperature – it was stiflingly hot outside – and not really listening to the conversation.

When they passed through a room where a few mummies were displayed, he could not help a silent snort, remembering the scream his sister had let out when he had quite literally ‘raised’ a mummy from its sarcophagus, on that particular morning, so long ago. Some things turned out quite weird, really: he couldn’t recall some events that had taken place one week ago, but he had kept in mind every detail of the day after the Sultan’s Casbah, when he had shown that bloody ‘puzzle box’ to Evy. Down to the fact that the Bembridge scholars had rejected his sister’s application for the third time. And also the massive hangover he had been nursing.

They crossed a small number of rooms, and finally stopped in front of a large wooden door. Evy and Tommy stepped aside as Hakim took out a bunch of keys.

The room behind the door was small, and rather dark, the only ray of light coming from a high, fairly large window. There were several items, but none of them caught Jonathan’s attention as much as the diamond, sitting imposingly on a low, sober-looking display shelf against the wall. The light was mirrored in its numerous facets, only stopped by the elaborate gold decorations.

The Diamond of Ahm Shere in all its gleaming glory.

“Whoa,” whispered Tommy, his eyes goggling.

“I know the feeling,” said Jonathan in the same voice, a big grin pulling at the left corner of his mouth. “Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”

Tommy only nodded, blinking.

“The diamond taken from Ahm Shere,” announced Hakim, heading for the gem with Evy. “Although I suspect you already know the story behind it, Mr Ferguson, since you appear to be familiar both with Egyptian secrets and the ones who brought it here.”

“I do know the story,” Tommy said, not taking his fascinated eyes off the diamond. “Is it true, what I’ve heard? About the link between the oasis and the diamond?”

That drew Jonathan’s attention away from the gem. “What link?” he asked, puzzled. “What’re you on about?”

“According to what Ardeth once told me,” said Evy, stepping closer to have a better look at the diamond, “the pyramid would be a sort of lock to the oasis, to which the diamond would be the key. But I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that. Besides, I had other things on my mind at the time.” She trailed off, and Jonathan realised that this conversation must have taken place aboard Izzy’s dirigible, on their way to Ahm Shere. While they had been chasing after Imhotep and Anck-su-namun, who had kidnapped Alex. Bloody rotten mummies.

“Why didn’t _I_ catch that bit?” he asked, interested in both the answer and talking Evy away from the memory. That worked, and she stared at him, a thin dark eyebrow raised quizzically.

“I believe it had something to do about you dreaming about that ‘gold pyramid’…”

Jonathan opened his mouth, but, deciding that he’d had enough quarrelling with his sister to last him a long time, shut it and turned back to the diamond with a noncommittal shrug.

Then they heard the footfall. Hurried footsteps raced up the hall, coming closer and closer, until –

“Dr Hakim! Dr Hakim!”

The curator walked over to the door, where a young, skinny Egyptian fellow had just come rushing in, his face drenched with sweat.

“What is the matter, Jamal?” asked Hakim in a slightly strained voice, and Jonathan marvelled at the cold, calm curator suddenly coming so close to losing his cool.

“Problems – problems in the – the Akhenaten chamber,” the young assistant panted breathlessly. “Someone has moved pieces – the bust of the accursed Pharaoh has been set down – glass all over the floor, must be a broken window –”

“Calm yourself, Jamal,” said Hakim, putting a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “I’m going. Have you told Abdul?”

“Yes, sir, I met him on the way here,” stammered Jamal. “What shall I do?”

“Just give me one second while I speak to our guests,” answered Hakim patiently, and his steady voice seemed to have a calming effect on the boy. He nodded, and leaned against the wall for support, as Hakim turned to his ‘guests’.

“Well, I’m genuinely sorry that the visit was so dramatically shortened, but it appears I am needed. May I escort you to the main hall?”

Tommy opened his mouth, looking scandalised, but Jonathan was quicker. “Come on, can’t we just stay a mite longer? I mean, what’s the worst that could possibly happen?”

“Whoever broke into the Museum could break in here and steal some more objects,” replied the curator, coolly. “And I believe you’ve seen enough of the diamond. After all, it is all that it seems – just a gem.”

“It’s not ‘just a gem’!” exclaimed Tommy. “It’s the only remnant of the Oasis of Ahm Shere – the key to the pyramid and the chambers within!”

“What exactly do you know about it?” Evy piped up, and Jonathan noticed the glint in her eyes. _Oh, boy_. Whenever it appeared, this glint meant trouble.

Tommy shrugged disappointedly. “Not much more than you do. My superiors aren’t quite keen on giving out information they feel we don’t need to know.”

Jonathan didn’t like the look on Evy’s face, so he stepped up and tried to be reasonable, for once. “We could stand sentinel. You know, guard this room or something, until you find the guy. Nothing’s going to happen to the contents of this room while I’m in it, I swear.”

“And I’ll help,” added Tommy. “Believe me, if anyone tries to break in uninvited, I’ll bash their ‘ead in.”

The curator looked unimpressed, but Evelyn stared at them, frowning. “Can we actually trust you with the diamond? Do you swear that nothing will happen?”

“Evy, I swear on my own head,” said Jonathan, seriously. Well, almost. He really wanted to be, though.

Beside him, Tommy nodded solemnly, his face impassive. Evy sighed. For some reason, it was Hakim who spoke, and even more surprising, there was the ghost of a smile on his severe face. “Well. It would seem that you are quite determined. Consider yourself to be on a mission from now on. I may be wrong, of course – but I have a few reasons to think we can trust you.” And he smiled. He actually smiled slightly at Jonathan, his eyes still stern, and the Englishman got the feeling that he might be familiar with some of the events that occurred at Ahm Shere. Maybe Ardeth had told him about it, as they were distant blood relatives. In fact, their closeness was certainly more due to their both being Medjai than their actual kinship.

Jonathan stared back, a feeling of pride growing in him. Then he shook himself out of it and grinned. “Well, thanks – for trusting us, I mean. Not many people who’d do that, I guess.”

Evy chuckled, and the curator’s face went back to its usual gravity.

“We will conduct a thorough search,” he said, turning to young Jamal, “and I hope we’ll be able to catch the intruders in time. Stay here with Messrs Carnahan and Ferguson, while Dr O’Connell and I gather the attendants for the search.”

“Yes, Dr Hakim, sir,” said Jamal in a firmer voice, straightening his fez on his head. Hakim laid briefly a hand on his shoulder again, and, after a last glance at Jonathan and Tommy, he walked off with Evy. A few seconds later, there was the sound of a key turning in its lock, and footfall dying away.

There was silence; then Jonathan went to sit on the floor, his back against the wall. Tommy soon came to join him.

“Well, that’s quite some sister you’ve got, mate. She’s not just smart, she’s got guts as well,” he said after a little while.

“I know.” Jonathan grinned. “She and her family – they’re the stuff heroes are made of.”

“Knock it off, Jon. You’re her family too, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Of course I haven’t, you idiot – it’s just that I’m no hero. Try as I may, I’ll always be the average bloke, and I happen to like it that way. God knows they need someone normal in the family, for a change. Bloody bunch of heroic nutcases, the lot of them.”

Tommy nodded with a smile, and didn’t press the matter further, something for which Jonathan was secretly grateful. There were entirely in the wrong place for a proper heart-to-heart, and much too sober for it.

He looked up across the room to Jamal. The boy was standing near the door as he gazed at the chamber, looking a little scared. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two or so.

“Your name’s Jamal, isn’t it?”

The assistant started, and looked at them curiously, as if he wasn’t sure that the Englishman had actually addressed him. Jonathan grinned encouragingly.

“Erm, yes,” stuttered Jamal. “It is. You’re Mr Carnahan, aren’t you?”

“That’d be me, yes – didn’t know I was that famous.” Jonathan nodded. “And this fellow here, with the weird accent, is Tommy Ferguson.”

Tommy waved briefly with a smile. Jamal nodded respectfully, and stared back at Jonathan. “You’re the Jonathan Carnahan who brought the Diamond of Ahm Shere to the museum?”

“I am,” he said, both pleased and puzzled by such fame. “How long have you been working here for?”

“Three months, sir,” answered the boy. “Dr Hakim was very kind to hire me even if I was not twenty-one. I really needed to work, and I like to work here.”

“How old are you, anyway?” asked Tommy.

“Twenty-one now, sir. My birthday was last month.”

“Jolly good – happy birthday, then, son!” said Jonathan, grinning. “Even if it’s a bit late –”

Something made the three of them look up at the window. There was a sound behind it, although Jonathan didn’t recognise what it was exactly.

Then another kind of sound came from the door. This time, Jonathan recognised it at once – somebody was trying to break in.

“Tommy –”

“I heard.”

Jamal had joined them near the door, shaking like a leaf. As the mystery man on the other side kept fiddling with the lock, Jonathan started to feel the familiar cold sensation rising in his stomach, which meant he was dangerously close to panic. There was no adventurer around, no blazing guns this time. _What to do, what to do, what to do…_

Turning around wildly, he caught sight of a cylindrical thingy with the head of Horus at the top. He grabbed it and joined Tommy who was standing in front of the door. Jamal was a few feet away, still shivering, but resolute.

“Don’t you need –?” asked Jonathan, as he noticed his friend’s hands were empty of any weapon. He was answered by a grim smile.

“Don’t worry, mate. I won’t.”

The lock scraping grew more and more intense. Through his panic, a part of Jonathan’s brain that was still functioning marvelled at the fact that those guys, whoever they were, had managed to find, amidst all the rooms and chambers of the museum, the one hiding the diamond.

And them. Though not for so long, it seemed.

_CRACK!!_ The window was smashed into pieces, distracting the three men for a second as they whirled around – it was one second too many. The door banged open, and before Jonathan could turn back to it, pain exploded at the back of his head. He had the sensation of falling backwards, the metal cylinder still clutched in his hand; a split second later, the world turned blood red, then black, and he knew no more.


	4. Here We Go Again

Evelyn started to notice the peculiar, ominous feeling as she and Dr Hakim walked swiftly down the stairs to the Akhenaten room to inspect the scale of the disaster. By the time they got into the chamber and met with Abdul, the chief attendant, she was quite certain something was amiss, although she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

While Dr Hakim, Abdul and his aides tidied up the room in search for anything missing, she ran to the various ways in and out of the museum to check the locks. When she was finished, she headed back to the chamber of Akhenaten, the Heretic.

“Doctor?” she called when she ran back into the room. “All the entrances are locked. At least they won’t be able to get out that way with anything heavy. What did they take?”

“Nothing,” answered the curator in a strained voice, stepping back from a shelf where he and Abdul had put back all the statuettes that had been thrown down. “Absolutely nothing. Not even the ivory figurine of Khufu, which was the smallest in the room and could easily be slipped into a pocket… It seems that they only meant to create a diversion.”

_A diversion…_ None of the entrances had been forced. The museum was closed for the day, no visitor or foreign person was allowed entry. Someone had let them in.

A thought struck her and she opened her mouth, her eyes wide. “Dr Hakim – if none of the doors were broken, then they must have had help from the inside. And that means…”

Dr Hakim stared at her, his black eyes flashing. “Carry on, Dr O’Connell. Let’s see if your idea is the same as mine.”

“That means they would know the exact location of the diamond’s chamber,” Evelyn completed, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I believe it’s one of the most valuable items you have here… Valuable in certain eyes, of course, since most of the hieroglyphs and statuettes here are inestimable, but…”

She didn’t mention the true reason behind that idea – that everything related to Hamunaptra and Ahm Shere had so far brought nothing but misfortune every time it resurfaced. And she had the vague impression that now was going to turn out to be one of these times. Here we go again, as Rick would have said.

Oh, goodness, Rick had been right about the diamond. He would never let her live it down.

Dr Hakim nodded and spoke a few words in Arabic to Abdul, who gave orders to his aides. It was strange to see Abdul in charge – he had been one of the youngest attendants in her time as the museum librarian.

“Come,” Hakim told her, as Abdul took out his duty truncheon, the only weapon the three of them owned. As they all but ran towards the diamond’s room along the many halls and corridors, the ominous feeling of foreboding turned into a state of near-panic. _Jonathan…_

“_Yā salām!_1” The curator’s voice echoed through the high chamber when he crossed the door, startling Evelyn, who had never heard him swear before. She rushed into the room after him and Abdul, and her blood froze in her veins when she caught sight of the crumpled figure of her brother lying on the floor in front of her. He looked very white, and deathly still.

“Jonathan! Oh my God, Jon, no… please don’t be dead, please –” She dropped next to him, shaking, trying hard not to look at the small puddle of blood where his head lay. “Abdul!”

The chief attendant, who had been checking on Tom, came near her. His face was pale.

“The other Englishman lives, but he’s been knocked out. Is your brother –?”

“I don’t know…” Evelyn choked out the words, tears stinging her eyes. “I can’t feel his pulse, my hands are shaking too much…”

Abdul looked at her, his eyes sympathetic, and put two fingers on Jonathan’s neck. After a few seconds, he turned to Evelyn with a smile.

“He’s alive, Mrs O’Connell. He has taken a nasty blow to the head, but he’ll live.”

Evelyn closed her eyes, breathing deeply, still shaking. She was aware that a tear or two had rolled down her cheeks, but Abdul was tactful enough not to say anything. She would have been so much more embarrassed had Dr Hakim been there instead. He was a man of such self-control that she would have been ashamed of losing her head so utterly in front of him, she who so often called on cool logic and sensible reasoning.

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and looked around. Tommy was lying flat on his stomach a few feet away, sporting a large lump at the back of his head, and the curator seemed to be trying to revive him. Pieces of glass were scattered over the floor on a spot near the wall, and when her eyes followed the wall up to the window, she saw that it had been shattered.

Sure enough, the Diamond of Ahm Shere was no longer lying on its display shelf.

“Dr Hakim? Where is the assistant, Jamal?”

The curator came to stand near her, his face grim and set. “Gone. I believe the thieves would have notified us if they had taken him hostage, so it is more likely that he was their accomplice. We were both right: they had a man inside, and they _did_ come for the diamond.” His eyes flickered down to Jonathan, and back to her. “How is your brother?” he asked, in a softer voice.

Evelyn lightly touched her brother’s cheek. As he showed no sign of waking, she said, her throat still tight, “Unconscious. Somebody stunned him.” Her eyes fell on the sceptre clenched in Jonathan’s right hand. His fingers were clutched so tightly around it that she had trouble making him let go. She gave a sad smile, as it occurred to her that he probably hadn’t had time to use this makeshift weapon.

“Abdul,” said Dr Hakim after a little while, “fetch Ahmed and the others. We will need their help. And a doctor, too, just in case.”

Her heart was starting to slow back to its normal rate. She let her fingers run very gently on Jonathan’s cheek, looking at his white, still face. It seemed so wrong. It was hard to think he wasn’t going to open his eyes, wink at her, and tease her for looking so scared.

Because she hadn’t been frightened this badly in a long time. And it would have been so awful if… _Stop it right here, girl. No ‘ifs’. Things are bad enough already…_

Evelyn regretted, now, having started that silly conversation about marriage earlier. At the time it had seemed such a smart idea to take her brother’s mind off her suspicions about Tom Ferguson. The matter sounded pretty trite now compared to what was surely to come, what with the Diamond being stolen and what could ensue…

She could use a little teasing to soothe her frazzled nerves, she realised. Even – or rather, especially – if it came from her brother.

* * *

Whatever bloody git said that your ears were the first to function when you woke up was so bloody wrong, Jonathan decided. There was nothing he could hear, see, or feel, except for the overwhelming pain that started in his head and extended to the very tips of his fingers. When was the last time he’d got knocked out cold? He couldn’t even remember the reason, either, only that the aftereffects hadn’t been much worse than a solid hangover.

Not much worse, my foot, as Evy would say.

_Evy…_

He was beginning to hear something, in fact. Her voice, he was certain of it. Unusually subdued, and he couldn’t understand the words, but it was definitely his sister’s voice.

What had happened? Oh yes, that blow to his head. Just thinking about it made him want to empty his large stock of curses. If he hadn’t been so stupid as to turn round at the sound of the window breaking, he could have actually done something, instead of letting himself be knocked on the head and let the diamond be –

The diamond. _Bloody hell!_

The shock of the realisation, if he had been awake, would have taken his breath away. Instead, in this state, the effect was that he could at last hear properly.

“How can you say that! Mr Ferguson has just told you exactly what happened – there was no way they could have stopped them from getting the diamond!”

Evy’s voice, again. And she sounded angry.

“I am not putting the blame on any of these gentlemen, but we are facing facts here – the Diamond of Ahm Shere has been taken, and we have no idea who has it, or where, or why!”

All right, that was Hakim’s voice, as close to genuine wrath as it could get. Well, he had every right to be, after all.

Jonathan worked hard on willing his eyes open. He failed. It felt as if the three pyramids of Giza were sitting on his lids to keep them shut. So his valiant efforts only resulted in more pain. Ouch. _Dammit._

A damp cloth was pressed against his temple, and it felt so good that he was tempted, for a moment, to stop thinking at all and sink back into blissful unconsciousness. Then it occurred to him that the hand holding the cloth was probably Evy’s, and that she might be worried about him. Now, in any other circumstances, he would have enjoyed being coddled by his sister, but right now didn’t seem to be the ideal time. _Come on, old boy, you can do better than that_.

At the expense of another effort, he managed to open his eyes just a little bit.

For all the fond memories he had of Egypt, there were a few annoying details one simply couldn’t push aside. The sand, for one – nasty, sticky thing with the even nastier habit of getting everywhere, and that meant _everywhere_. Also, the heat, overwhelming, crushing from ten in the morning to ten in the evening. And the fact that such a heat tended to make every kind of stench ten times stronger. You just had to get used to those sorts of things.

But there was also the light. That beautiful, blinding, ever-present bloody light that was one of the reasons why Evy loved Egypt so much. You just didn’t get this sort of light in London, even in the middle of August.

And Jonathan had just been painfully reminded of that particular detail.

“Jon! You’re awake – it’s about bloody time, mate!”

Jonathan winced at the boom of Tommy’s voice. Of course, that meant his friend was alive and well, and he was genuinely relieved to hear that, but… for cripes’ sake, did he really have to shout?

He opened his eyes fully this time, and a blurry figure came hovering into view. Evy, by the look of it. “Oh, Jonathan, thank God… Are you all right? How do you feel? Do you know what time it is?”

“Do you really want to know, or is it just to check on the state of my head?” How he managed to crack that grin, he didn’t know. But he immediately wished he hadn’t when the headache threatened to split his head in two. “I don’t have a clue as to the time, but to answer your second – was that second? – question, I feel like I’ve just been dug up from my grave. Next time our mummy pal wakes up again I must ask him for tips.”

His vision was clearing swiftly, and he had the pleasure of seeing Evy give a smile, albeit a rather shaky one. When the fourth occupant of the room spoke, however, there was nothing cheerful in his voice.

“Do not jest about the Creature! I realise the blow you received was severe, but we must return to graver matters. The Diamond has been stolen.”

Jonathan had figured that out, but couldn’t help a pang of remorse. He nodded glumly as Dr Hakim carried on. “As of now, nobody can tell for sure the purposes of the thieves, who they are or who ordered the attack. Whoever they are, they are organised – I think I can safely venture the opinion that things were already set up three months ago, when I hired Jamal Hassan as assistant –”

“Whoa, hang on a sec,” interrupted Jonathan, trying to sit up on his elbows and ignore his throbbing head, which wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. “You mean Jamal, as in that young fellow who was in the chamber with us?”

“Seems so,” answered Tommy grimly. He was sitting on a chair a few feet away, pressing a cloth to the back of his own head, and it was only then that Jonathan noticed that they were in the curator’s office. His head had been lying on Evy’s folded jacket, and when he turned to have a closer look, he saw the traces of blood on it. No wonder she’d looked so relieved when he had opened his eyes. If it had been Evy lying there, and _her_ blood on that jacket, he would have been scared witless.

It took him a minute for the piece of information about the young assistant to sink in. Then he leaned back with a groan. “Why, that little bugger! If I’d known…”

“If _I_ had known, the diamond would still be there, protected and guarded by us,” said Hakim, his jaw clenched. “I will inform my chieftain about it, and the Elders as well. We need a plan.”

“Do you really think that this theft might – that the thieves know what the Diamond could achieve and will be using it?” asked Evy anxiously.

“I do not know. Maybe my chieftain will have another opinion, but mine is that we should wait for the next move. We don’t know enough to do anything yet.”

“How long before Ardeth Bay is informed, do you think?”

Jonathan’s eyes darted between Evy and Hakim, and they were back on Evy as he inquired, “Erm, do I really need to ask what the, er, thieves could ‘achieve’ with that diamond if they used it?”

“Do you really wanna know?” deadpanned Tommy, and Jonathan was glad to hear that he had dropped the posh accent he’d used earlier to get into the curator’s good books.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I do – if that can keep me from having my head split open again.” He looked at his sister, and something dawned on him as she stared back at him with an expression he knew only too well. “Oh, no. _No_. Not again – not the whole ‘wipe out the world’ thing – Evy, dear, it’s getting a bit old, don’t you think?” _And don’t you think _we_’re getting a bit old for this, too?_

Evy sighed. “Honestly, Jonathan, you know that if I could prevent it from happening – but the fact is, we’re involved again, and we can’t just leave things as they are –”

“Sure, I know that. Don’t ask me to agree with you, but I actually understand your point. But do you really think Rick is going to agree with you as well? Last time he got involved in supernatural stuff was only because that blighter kidnapped Alex – that’s what it took to drag him here. And now, the only reason for his being here is that he has your word – your word, Evy! – that nothing will happen. No funny business, no mummies, no Book, and_ no diamond_!” Jonathan impressed even himself by that speech. Of course the diamond being stolen bothered him. But if the price for getting it back was his sister going out to risk her life again _and_ facing afterwards the legitimate wrath of the six-foot-tall heap of American muscle that was his brother-in-law… Then the hell with it. He didn’t care tuppence about the sodding thing.

Evy looked appalled, but her brother didn’t give her time to retort.

“You didn’t get involved in anything, for cripes’ sake! It’s just been really bad luck that those fellows chose just that very moment to steal that diamond –”

“Excuse me,” said Hakim in a cold voice, “but I think that if someone was indeed ‘involved’ in this, it would be _you_, not your sister.”

Jonathan and Evy both gaped at him, while Tommy began to laugh quietly at the two of them. A minute ticked off before Evy replied, her eyes wide, “Come on, Dr Hakim, you – you can’t be serious! As my brother said, he was just unlucky enough to be in the Diamond’s chamber with Mr Ferguson and young Mr Hassan – you can’t implicate him in this!”

“Oh, he can’t ‘implicate’ me, but _you_’re dying to get involved, aren’t you?” said Jonathan, sarcastic. “Typical.”

“Just you keep out of it, Jonathan,” snapped Evy. “And don’t move. The doctor said you should lie down for a moment.”

“I feel perfectly fine, thank you very much –” Now this had to be his biggest lie in months. His head felt about to explode. “– And may I remind you of the subject? Meaning your _not going_ off to some godforsaken pyramid on some ‘let’s save the world and _die_ in the process’ mission!”

He regretted the words the second they came out of his mouth, but there was no way to take them back. An eerie hush fell; both Tommy and Hakim were quiet, looking either at the two of them in turn, or at anything else but them. Evy was staring at him, looking both shocked and something else that he couldn’t decipher. When she spoke at last, it was slowly and in a low voice, her eyes not leaving his.

“I think we should talk about this sometime, Jonathan.”

“Well I don’t,” he retorted, his voice just as low. “And don’t change the subject.”

“Far be it from me to interfere in your – family business,” said the curator in an uncharacteristically subdued voice, “but I think the best idea would be for you to go back home, and then to England. Technically, your errand here is over.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t!” exclaimed Evy spontaneously. “We’re here to get this diamond to England, and we _will_ get it to England! No, Jonathan, don’t say anything,” she said sharply, barely turning to him, as he opened his mouth. He shut it with a snap. “I already know your opinion about it.”

“Evy, come on…” Jonathan put on his best ‘big brother’ voice, despite the fact that Evy was generally impervious to it. “All right, so the diamond was stolen. We could – I don’t know, go back to England, wait for news, and eventually return if they find it again!”

But Evy’s resolve seemed to be made of steel. She didn’t accept one word against what she believed was right, and in a way, Jonathan admired this iron determination… Even if he was slowly starting to believe that all this was going down the drain.

For a change.

* * *

The muffled sound of a violent row was going on from the ground floor through the floorboards, and even if Jonathan couldn’t make out the words, the gist was obvious.

He had thought Rick would be mad. He had been wrong. Rick had gone completely and utterly livid when Evelyn had told him about her decision to stay in Egypt until the diamond was recovered and help, if help was needed. And now they were both going at it, in a very angry, so very uncharacteristic way. The walls rattled from the shouting.

It was so wrong. After all they had been through, it was so wrong to see the two of them fighting so angrily.

There was a faint knock on the door, and a second later, a pair of bright blue eyes was peering across the room. “Uncle Jon? You awake?”

“Yes, Alex, come in,” Jonathan called, sitting up in bed and leaning against the pillows. He had crawled up in his room when Evy and him had arrived, and since Rick had come back just after diner he had abandoned any idea of sleeping. There had been some whispers, then the conversation had begun in earnest, and he had been staring at the ceiling for some time now.

Alex slipped into the room, and closed the door quietly behind him. He looked hesitant.

“Mum said I should let you rest, but… well, I can hear everything from my room, so I – I figured that from yours it couldn’t be much worse…”

“No harm done. I couldn’t sleep anyway. And I think I could use some of your excellent company.”

Alex smiled, and came to sit on the carpet beside the bed, the way he would when something bothered him, or when he just wanted to chat. Then he appeared to change his mind and sat on the bed, his back against the bar at the foot of the bed. Jonathan handed him a pillow.

“Thanks,” the boy said, putting the pillow behind him and propping his back up against it. He waited a few seconds, then looked at his uncle with a worried expression on his face. “Uncle Jon, you – you look kinda pale, you know.”

“That’s nothing,” Jonathan said with a wave of his hand. “I’m fine. I’ve been knocked on the head before – takes a lot more than that to get rid of me.”

Second smile from his nephew, a little more confident this time. “Yeah, I figured. For all the times Dad said he was gonna kill you…”

“Oh, he almost did, once or twice.” Jonathan flashed a grin. “And your mum saved my neck, always. Well, not always – sometimes.”

Alex gave a puzzled frown. “What d’you mean, ‘sometimes’?”

“Well, remember what I told you about the first time I met your dad?”

“You mean, when you nicked the Key of Hamunaptra from his pocket?”

“Exactly. And you know of course how your mum came to that prison to see the man who owned the blasted thing?”

Alex rolled his eyes with a mock sigh. “The story’s been in the family for ages, Uncle Jon – Mum and Dad have told me that hundreds of times.” Then he sobered down, and looked at the door. “I’d almost like to hear that one from them again now. It’s funny, you know how they get all mushy and kissy? Well, frankly, I prefer them kissing than fighting.”

“So do I, son.” Jonathan sighed, as the row raged on one floor lower. There was a moment’s silence, after which Alex turned his head from the door back to his uncle.

“So, what was the point?”

“The point – oh yes, the point. Well, here’s me and your mum, waltzing into that prison – the way it was _stinking_, you have no idea – and asking to see the American. Too bad we didn’t have one of these fancy little cameras they have now. He looked like a caveman.” Jonathan refrained from chuckling. “What did Evy say? Yes, ‘Filthy, rude, and a complete scoundrel. Nothing to like there at all’2.”

“Mum said _that_ about Dad?” Alex’s face hesitated between amazement and laughter.

“Oh, yes. That wild-looking man behind bars, and my Evy, not remotely afraid as she should have been, went straight to him to talk about that puzzle box. Of course, I’d said something or other about us being adventurers, or missionaries or some similar rot… And your dad, being the smart bloke I didn’t know he was, knew me instantly as the chap who had picked his pocket and punched me in the jaw. I can tell you, that hurt – a lot.” Alex snorted. “When I came round, first thing I saw was that wild American kissing my sweet, innocent baby sister.”

“Did that hurt more?” asked Alex, grinning. Jonathan gave him the deadpan look that was his nephew’s favourite.

“The day you have a baby sister, son, you’ll understand.” A beat. “Then again, I think your dad’s jab was what hurt most. That man’s fists are iron, I swear.”

The noise of the fight seemed to be dying down, on the ground floor. Besides that, the relative silence was comfortable enough.

“I just don’t understand Mum,” Alex sighed after a little while. “Why does she want to stay? Because that’s why they’re fighting, isn’t it? What happened at the museum?”

There was no escape from telling the whole story to a boy who could look at you that way. Jonathan hesitated a little, then looked at Alex sternly. “Don’t tell your mum I told you.” Then he sighed. “Well, you know, that mate of mine, Tommy – he sort of specialises in antiques, like your mum, so I saw it as a good idea to take him to see the diamond. Evy was very nice, talking that dragon of a curator into it, and there we went. We got to the chamber, through some sort of maze of corridors, and two minutes later, this assistant, Jamal, ran into the room and told us there’s been some funny business going on in another room.

“We stayed in the diamond’s room for its protection, him, Tommy and I – what are you laughing for, honestly? And a few minutes later, we started to hear some weird noise at the door. So the three of us came in front of it, ready to defend the diamond –”

“And the bad guys broke in through the window!” Alex finished, laughing. Jonathan shook his head with a sheepish smile.

“Ah… not quite. Someone did break the window, so we turned to see what was going on – that’s when the door opened with a bang. I didn’t have time to turn back, and then nothing. Complete blackout. And the diamond was stolen.” He winced. “Bit pathetic, eh?”

To his surprise, Alex did not joke this time. He seemed to think it over, and looked back seriously at his uncle. “No, I don’t think you’re pathetic. I mean, you can be at times, but –” _Good Lord, if the boy is getting the same sense of humour as his father…_ “– But you’re my uncle, and if some guy says you’re pathetic I’ll land him one on the nose.” And he grinned.

Something swelled inside Jonathan’s chest. He had never heard Alex say something like that to him, and he found himself very proud of being worthy of such praise. Especially since it came from his nephew, who was not prone to making compliments.

In the silence that followed, they both could hear something quite unexpected – complete silence. Occasionally broken by whispers, or bits of phrases, but it seemed that the row was over. For the moment.

Alex looked up at the ceiling with a sigh of relief. “You know, back at school, nobody has a mum who’s an Egyptologist, and a dad who’s fought mummies, and –” there he grinned at Jonathan “– an uncle who’s a great bus driver… I wonder what the other parents fight over.”

Jonathan had to smile at that. The boy had a point.

“Still…” he continued thoughtfully, “I wonder what it’s like to live a normal life. Nobody believes me when I tell them about Imhotep, Lock-Nah and the rest.”

“Nobody?”

“Well, not quite. There’s Edgar – Edgar Jacobs, he’s in my history class. He’s a bit bossy, but he’s fun to hang around with. And he knows his Egyptian history for sure.”

“And his parents don’t fight?”

“I don’t know. We don’t talk about things like that.” Alex puffed up his chest slightly. “We’re lads, you know how it goes.”

“Yes, I know.” Some things would never change, it seemed.

Alex gave a noncommittal shrug, then seemed to hesitate a bit, before asking, his voice a little unsure, “Uncle Jon, my grandparents… You and Mum’s mum and dad… Did they fight at all?”

This took Jonathan entirely by surprise. He blinked, then looked over at Alex uncertainly. “I don’t know. Maybe they did, but never in front of us. Our mother had quite the quick temper, Evy takes that after her, so I guess there must have been some times when they didn’t agree…”

Alex’s eyes didn’t leave his face. “What were they like?”

Jonathan was silent for a little while, gathering his memories. It had been a long time since he had last talked about John and Salwa Carnahan3. “Well… Father was tall, with a long face and nose. He had blue eyes, you can’t see that on the photos, of course. Smiled often enough, but didn’t laugh much. I reckon I look a little like him, minus the moustache.”

“Was he nice?”

“That was – that’s not the best way to put it. He was always very calm, serious, sort of noble-looking… _That_ I know I didn’t inherit from him. He could be very kind, whenever he wanted to, but most of the time he was very busy – we didn’t see that much of him. But I always thought he must be very brave, venturing into those cold, dark pyramids in search of dead people.”

He smiled at Alex, who was drinking in his words, his blue eyes wide in childlike curiosity. “Then there was our mum. Whenever Father spoke about mummies, funeral rites and fantastic discoveries for science, she told us about all the myths and the legends of Egypt. ‘The Land of Living Sand’, she called it. That was my favourite part – I didn’t care much about the dynasties and things Evy was so keen about. She taught me every part of Egyptian mythology that I know, the stories of all the gods and everything – I’ve forgotten half of it now, but some stuff’s still fixed in my mind. She had a really vivid way to tell those stories.”

Alex gave a smile. He sat hugging his knees, his eyes shining. “Is it true, that Mum looks just like her? I’ve seen a picture of her on Mum’s locket. She looked pretty.”

“Yeah, she really was…” Jonathan stared into the distance for a few seconds, the beat of his heart changing ever so subtly. “She was, er… She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I don’t say that just because she was my mum.” As he went on, he hoped that his smile wasn’t too shaky. His forte was joking and obfuscating; this was getting dangerously close to awkward and maudlin. “She had – she had long, black hair, skin darker than ours, bright eyes and a bright smile… It’s true that Evy looks a lot like her. She really does. Of course, there’re some differences, but – you get the gist.” Alex nodded enthusiastically. “She was the one who’d sit at our bedside, when Evy and I used to sleep in the same room, and tell us stories. There was a war between Evy and me, to see who would stay awake longest. I made a point of winning, because I was the older brother – but she often beat me. You know your mum, when she’s set her mind on something…”

Alex gave a lopsided smile, and Jonathan grinned back. Despite the apprehension he’d had at first about getting into all those old memories again, in the end, it felt rather good to share them with his nephew. Not to mention the fact that the boy was only too pleased to hear those stories.

Of course, he should have anticipated the question that went next. But a part of him was still hoping that Alex wouldn’t ask. A part of him didn’t want to answer that particular question.

“How did they die, Uncle Jon?”

Right on target.

Jonathan winced, and inwardly searched for a way to dodge that question. Soon he could see a couple of escapes, but it felt dishonest to leave Alex hanging like this. Nobody could accuse Jonathan Carnahan of being honest, but he’d always made a point of being truthful to his nephew.

“Your mum never told you?”

Alex squirmed slightly against the pillow. “Well, not _really_. It’s almost more difficult to get her to talk about my grandparents than you.”

“To tell the truth, partner, I’m not quite keen on the subject.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“So why don’t you go ask your mum, instead?”

Alex gave an annoyed sigh. “Because, right now, I’d like _you_ to tell me about it!”

That took Jonathan aback. He had some difficulties understanding why on earth his word would be wanted more than Evy’s. That wasn’t the way things went, usually.

“All right, don’t fret, I’ll tell you… Right. It was a couple of years after the war. Evy had just turned nineteen, and I’d gone back to Oxford to try to finish my degree before Evy finished hers. Our parents had been in Britain during the war, but after the armistice they quickly followed Carter and Carnavon’s party back to Egypt. They were planning to work on the Valley of the Kings, you know, they’d dug up a whole lot of pharaohs’ mummies down there – something like thirty-five, or close enough. Father had been unsure about going without us, but she had said that Evy and I were adults now, and they could leave us on our own.” _Hah_. Even two years shy of twenty-one, Evy had been more of an adult than he was. “So the two of us stayed in England with that old hag of a housekeeper, Mrs Gladys Pemberton, and our parents were off to Egypt.”

Jonathan stopped a few seconds for breath. Alex said nothing, but his eyes demanded the rest of the story. There was nothing Jonathan could refuse his nephew when he was looking at him like that.

“It was in the middle of the summer holidays; mother and father had promised to come home and spend the rest of the summer with us, so we were both waiting for news. I think Evy spent hours waiting outside for the postman, but we were both inside the house when news finally came. There was a thunderstorm raging on outside, and, er –” there he gave a low chuckle “– I can’t say I was feeling quite easy. I didn’t like storms that much.” He never had, even before getting acquainted with the sound of shelling.

“I don’t, either,” said Alex quietly. Jonathan was quite touched by that confession. Alex was scarcely one to admit a weakness. He nodded in thanks, and carried on.

“So, that night, Evy and I were sitting under the table in the dining room, scaring each other stiff with ghost or mummy stories… Don’t ask, we used to do that a lot when we were kids, and it just seemed like the perfect night for it. And then there was a knock at the door. I went to answer – big brother and all that, you know, and Mrs Pemberton had the week off – and this fellow was standing on our doorstep with a gloomy face. I remember that he had a fez in his hand, a white suit, and dark eyes. Must have been an aide of Carnavon’s or Carter’s, our parents used to know them well. Well, he gave me that big, thick envelope, planted a hand on my shoulder, and walked off like a ghost. And that’s weird, because it was not raining. I should’ve continued to see him till he passed through the gate, with all the lightening going on.”

Outside the window, the sun was quickly setting down on Egypt. The sky was streaked with gold and fire, and in other circumstances, Jonathan would have found some interest in gazing out the window if he had nothing to do but wait for the opening of Cairo’s bars. But he didn’t feel in the mood tonight. Rather weird, that, all things considered. A stiff drink was usually exactly what the metaphorical doctor ordered.

“The letter was from Lord Carnavon himself, telling the two of us that Salwa and John Carnahan’s plane had gone down over the Mediterranean an hour after taking off from Cairo. When I reached the end of the letter, I remember Evy calling me, and then nothing at all – total blank. I didn’t faint or anything, your mum told me so, but the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor against the sofa of the living room, and Evy was curled up against me, crying with her head on my shoulder. I think we remained like that all through the night. It was a living nightmare.”

Alex’s blue eyes were sad, his face serious – once again, rather too serious for his age. He sat silently, his chin resting on his knees, looking intently at his uncle. Jonathan looked away for a second, then back to stare at the boy, hoping that his face did not give away too much.

“You know, back at that… place – Ahm Shere – when you did what you did with that book… I’m sure your mum and dad must’ve told you that hundreds of times, so perhaps you’ll be sick of hearing it again, but… I’m so bloody proud of you, Alex. I never could’ve done it myself – and I really wouldn’t trust myself with any of these blooming books again. Last time I did, it was the Book of Amun-Ra, and I let it fall into a hole full of revolting stuff. I think your mum might have murdered me if we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out.” Jonathan tried hard to put feeling into the smile he gave his nephew. Alex’s expression was a weird one, halfway between a grin and fighting to keep a stiff upper lip.

“You never told me that.”

“What, that stuff about the Book of Amun-Ra? How much of an idiot do you think I am?”

“No, I mean –” Alex rolled his eyes, and looked back up at Jonathan with a wobbly smile. “Well, thanks. A lot. You know what I mean.”

“Not at all, partner.” Jonathan grinned and leaned back against the pillow. To tell the truth, he was starting to feel a mite tired, which he normally never did before two or three in the morning. But that was maybe due to his being knocked out earlier. That sort of thing tended to play merry hell with your evening plans.

That must have shown on his face, because Alex looked at him a little more carefully, narrowing his eyes. “D’you want me to leave?”

“Mmh? No, that’s all right – stay if you want to. Only I might fall asleep on you at some point.”

Actually, they kept talking for a fairly long time, until the sky by the window was pitch black, and Jonathan really couldn’t utter a word more. He fell asleep abruptly, while Alex put his head on the pillow, thinking about many things at once.

* * *

When Evelyn came in quietly to see if everything was all right, she smiled as she saw uncle and nephew each sharing an end of the bed, one sleeping soundly and the other dozing off. She called Rick for help and the two of them carried Alex to his own bedroom, then got him out of his clothes and into his pyjamas, and tenderly tucked him under the sheets.

Rick was still a little aloof with her, and she heartily hoped that tomorrow would change that. It was not as things should be. Whenever trouble came, she _always_ could rely on Rick’s support. When the Bembridge scholars had decided she was too prone to triggering off catastrophes to run the British Museum properly after all, he had stood faithfully at her side. When her evil supervisor Mr Harwood-Miller had made her first few weeks in the Museum a living hell for no apparent reason, Rick had suggested locking him up in Imhotep’s sarcophagus with a few flesh-eating scarabs, and when that had failed to cheer her up, to have a little chat with him. An ‘O’Connell’ chat, of course. And when they had received news from Alex’s school that he had had an accident and had been taken to the hospital, her husband had been the one who had kept her from going insane from the lack of news. And the one to wrap her in a bear hug when it turned out that Alex had only had his arm broken after some foolish stunt with friends of his.

The possibility that he could not be there for this diamond thing left her with a cold feeling of defeat. Of course, nothing like the Hamunaptra and Ahm Shere episodes was going to happen this time, but the thought of Rick not being on her side was nothing short of excruciating.

As she changed into her nightdress, she thought about the diamond, and what else it could bring upon her family. Having her brother hurt and her husband on bad terms with her was, in her opinion, enough ill luck.

How could things get worse than that?

_Famous last words, old girl_, said a familiar voice in the back of her head as she fell asleep in turn.

* * *

1يَا سَلَام (oh my God) 

2Evy’s _actual_ words were “I don’t like him one bit” – “nothing to like there at all” is what Jon says to tease her. Figured Jonathan’s memory would be a little selective, as memory is sometimes.

3_The Mummy Returns_ novelization has Evy’s and Jonathan’s father’s name as Howard Carnahan, but I only read it ages after ‘John’ became my set-in-stone headcanon. ‘Salwa’ is an Arabic name meaning ‘solace’.


	5. At the Bazaar

The next couple of days were surprisingly uneventful, by the O’Connell standards in any case. Rick quickly got over his initial fury, mollified by the absence of notable events – apart from the actual theft of the diamond, and the fact that his brother-in-law avoided going out on nights for two days. That surprised Rick to no end, although, come to think of it, Jonathan really didn’t seem up to it. The man did look like he had been visited by the mother of all hangovers, although Rick knew that wasn’t the case. For once.

But of course, the real reason why his anger died down so fast was Evelyn. The look on her face when she had gone to bed that night was something he had never seen before: sadness, and defeat. Evy never let herself be overcome by defeat, _never_. That had made him wonder silently as she slipped into their bed, not saying a word either. And it was the first thought that sneaked back into his mind when he woke up the morning after.

“Honey? You awake?”

She slept with her back to him after huddling against his chest during the night. Although this felt very comfortable, Rick always preferred it when she faced him, so he could watch her as she dreamed, and the funny faces she made then. It was also because of those little things, which he couldn’t live without, that Rick never regretted marrying her.

There were some other things that he found he definitely could do without, though. Like her misguided, so very annoying sense of responsibility – if she could take the blame for every damn mummy rising in Egypt or elsewhere, she would do it. She would always try to set things right no matter what the potential for catastrophe.

But she also had a way of making him feel like a complete heel every time he didn’t agree with her on something that was important to her. As long as it wasn’t life-threatening, that was okay, but right now, he was feeling downright miserable because of the way his wife had looked before she went to bed. And despite the fact that he was still certain that the idea of staying longer in Egypt was the worst since opening the chest with the Bracelet of Anubis, he was well aware that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make Evy smile again.

His whisper was answered by a stir of the lovely round shoulders in front of him, and a muffled, sleepy voice, “Yes, dear… I’m awake.”

He put a tender hand on her shoulder, and planted a few small kisses on the back of her neck. “Evelyn – look, I’m sorry about yesterday.” Even after all these years, even to _her_, he still had some trouble apologising. And she knew it. He heard a slight change in her breathing. “I didn’t mean what I said. I mean, I meant it then, but I didn’t mean to mean it – I was just angry, and worried, is all.”

Evy turned slightly, and he could partly see her face over her shoulder. Her eyes were shining in the half-light of the rising sun behind the shutters.

“I know you were worried. We’ve already gone through that before. But that doesn’t excuse your words, Rick. And it certainly doesn’t solve the problem.”

“Which problem are we talking about, exactly?” So many problems had appeared with the disappearance of that diamond, he didn’t know which one to pick.

“You told me very clearly that you wouldn’t be part of anything, this time. That I can understand. But –”

“No, please – the real problem is that I don’t want to get involved in this, but _you_ do, quite obviously. And there’s another problem: each time you get involved in something when you shouldn’t, something happens and you’re caught right in the middle of it. _That_ is what I don’t want to happen.”

To his amazement, Evy let out a little laugh, which shook her shoulders slightly. She rolled on her back and looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Jonathan said pretty much the same thing yesterday, almost to the word – that he didn’t want to get ‘involved’, but that _I_ clearly did. And he was very upset about that last part – even angry, I’d say.”

“That shows your brother’s making sense. For once, I completely agree with him.” And that was saying something considering the number of things they disagreed on. “By the way… I didn’t have time to ask yesterday – is he okay?”

This time, Evelyn turned to him, and he could see her entire face. It was a welcome sight, especially given the fact that she was still smiling slightly.

“He will be. But he had me thoroughly afraid for a little while.” Her smile vanished, and she gazed into the space in front of her. When she looked back at him, her eyes were serious. “Believe me, darling, I’m not doing it for… for thrills or some misplaced notion of fun. The Bracelet, the Sceptre – every object linked to Ahm Shere caused pain to the world, and to us in particular, and I have a feeling that this diamond might not be an exception to the rule. I want to see it safe, because I want to see you safe. You, Alex, Jonathan – you’re my only family, and I can’t bear to think about any of you getting hurt.”

Rick listened silently. Voiced that way, her motives made complete sense. His fury of yesterday had been fuelled by the fear he had of losing Evy or Alex again, and the need he felt to protect his family. Evy had had exactly the same reaction, only taking different decisions, in her own true way. And while such decisions were annoying as hell, they were also understandable.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, sweetheart, I appreciate that,” he sighed with a smile to signal his surrender. “But I’d like to point out to you that you were the one who died last time. So allow me to feel a little unsure about all this.”

Her eyes grew sadder, and she snuggled against him. He held her back, taking the opportunity to caress the soft skin of her arms, immensely glad that the fight was over.

“So… does that mean you will still be with me?”

“Frankly, Evy –” Rick slightly shook his head, incredulous. “I can’t believe you are asking me that. Of course I will – I always will. That’s what this ring stands for, doesn’t it? I love you, and I’ll always be with you… Even if that means putting up with your – what’d Jonathan say the other day? Those Englishmen, they do have a knack for understatements… ‘_idiosyncrasies_.’ Yeah, that’s it.”

He grinned at her, and she gave a broad smile. Their faces were so close that their foreheads were almost touching. From there he could look properly at her features and her bright eyes, count the few freckles on her nose, and see the small lines that had begun to creep at the corners of her eyes. Rick found himself liking those lines. Each one meant something they had gone through together, a moment they had lived together, a laugh or a worry they had shared. And he didn’t mind lines on his own face, as long as they mirrored his wife’s. He wanted to live with her, and that also meant growing old with her.

And it really couldn’t hurt if she was still kissing like that in twenty years, he thought as their lips touched.

Mmh… Definitely not.

* * *

“You still have no idea what you’ll give Mum for her birthday, have you?”

Alex stopped in his tracks and squinted up at his uncle with a frown. Even at this hour in the morning, the sunlight made his eyes ache slightly whenever he looked up from his shoes.

Uncle Jon squinted back, his eyes reduced to a pair of blue slits. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been thoroughly looking for a gift for quite some time. Really. I just seem to be unable to find the perfect present, that’s all.”

Alex waited, feeling that something was still to come.

“Having said that, I remain open to suggestions.”

“I knew it.” Alex rolled his eyes. “You don’t have a clue.”

“I do!” retorted Jonathan indignantly.

“You don’t.”

“I do, too!”

“You don’t!”

“I do!”

“You don’t!”

“I do!”

“You don’t!”

“I don’t!”

“You do!” Alex closed his mouth with a snap just after uttering the last syllable, realising that he’d been had. He glared at his uncle, who was chuckling discreetly.

“That wasn’t playing fair, Uncle Jon.”

“You’re right, partner,” Jonathan said with a laugh. “Next time I’ll be more of a sport.”

Alex nodded his approval seriously, and straightened the solar topee1 on his head, wishing that it was not so big. The thing kept sliding off, and it was really annoying. It was nine in the morning, and uncle and nephew had sneaked out to the bazaar, leaving a note to Mum and Dad on the kitchen table. His parents had not come out of their room yet. Uncle Jon had said something about the two of them still having some making up to do, and as Alex realised that it would involve a lot of kissing, hugging and other dubious stuff, he’d been more than happy to go outside and help his uncle find a fitting present for Mum.

They had just arrived at the bazaar: a large esplanade a little outside the centre of the city with ground of hard-packed earth, where quite a number of tents had been pitched, some more crookedly than others. Behind many, always nearby, the owners’ mules or camels were peacefully chewing on what they could; those who could afford a shaded spot for their beasts, let alone some extra fresh food, were lucky and rare.

Alex always liked bazaars, Cairo’s bazaar in particular, with its bright colours, strong smells, loud noises, and never-ending movements. The robes of men in coloured djellabas and women with stern eyes brushed past him as he let his eyes wander endlessly, reminding him of his dislike of still walking at armpit-level. But that familiar feeling didn’t alter the pleasure of being there. There was so much to see at once, and hear, and feel.

“Want some sound advice, Alex?” said Uncle Jon, his long hand clutching his nephew’s. “Keep an eye out for hustlers. There are so many unscrupulous characters in this world, you may not know them before they swindle you, you mark my words.”

The boy refrained from observing slyly that there had been some times when his uncle had not shown many qualms over a few shady deeds of his own – after all, Jonathan had been the one who had taught Alex how to open a door without a key, something Mum never needed to know – and tightened his hand around the few English coins he had in the pocket of his shorts. It wasn’t much, but it was his, and Mum wouldn’t like it if he lost his money.

“Here – what d’you think of those?” Jonathan was pointing to a display of golden trinkets of faux Ancient Egyptian style. Alex shook his head.

“That’s a knockoff, Uncle Jon. She won’t like it.”

“I know this one’s fake, I mean this sort of style could do the trick,” grumbled Jonathan, obviously offended that his own nephew didn’t believe him capable of telling a false treasure from a genuine one. Alex was perfectly aware of his uncle’s knowledge when it came to gold. But it was fun to tease him. He fell for it every time, just like Mum when Dad teased her.

“Why don’t you buy her a dress or something? She did like the last one you gave her.”

Jonathan shrugged. “Your dad’s already offering her a new set of ‘adventurer’s’ clothes, the kind she likes to wear here, with trousers and stuff.”

Alex smirked.

“Don’t you like it when she wears trousers then?”

A non-committal noise accompanied a second shrug.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I happen to find it rather distasteful, but as long as she’s comfortable… Evy’s always been pigheaded when it came to her appearance. Have you seen pictures of her before she met your dad?”

Oh, yes he had. It was hard to think that his mum had once looked like that, a young girl with old-fashioned clothes, little round glasses, a tight bun, and such a bossy air about her. She still used glasses to read, but much thinner than they had been, and she let her hair down most of the time. And the skirts she wore now were nothing like the long, stiff-looking ones she used to wear.

“Yeah. She looked like Mrs Blimp – sorry, Mrs Blinppiditch, my old teacher.”

“I suppose that’s saying a lot.” It was Jonathan’s turn to smirk. “What I mean is that your mum doesn’t care a jot about clothes and whatnot, and it’s always been like that. She wouldn’t hear a single word about it. When you were on your way – not born yet – Rick and I talked her into wearing light dresses, and I think your dad enjoyed that a lot. But as soon as she was back in Egypt with her hammers and chisels, she found out that trousers were more practical than dresses and skirts. Which is, I’m sure, not untrue.”

Alex, who only wore long trousers on Sundays and important occasions, did not fully agree with him. Shorts were indeed quite handy here in Egypt, more so than longer ones; if he wanted to climb up a wall or a tree, his mum would surely be more inclined to punish him if any harm came to the precious trousers. He preferred by far her fussing over a pair of scraped knees than ruined trouser legs.

Then again, the thought of his mum in short trousers made him cringe inwardly. What would the lads say, at school? They always said that his mum was quite pretty – as much for a girl as for a mum – but some already sniggered when she came to get him at the gates, after school, and fussed over him like he was still a little kid. This sort of thing could ruin a lad’s reputation if he was not careful. Of course he was glad whenever he saw her, especially after what happened at Ahm Shere, but… sometimes he wished she could just leave him alone.

Problem was, this kind of thinking often bothered him. You couldn’t go thinking that way about your mum, could you?

“What’s so nice about dresses, then?”

“Don’t ask me. I haven’t been in a dress since that panto2 in sixth form and you won’t get me to remember _that_ disaster as long as I live.”

Alex chuckled. “I’ll ask Ardeth Bay, then. He’s the only guy I know who wears something close enough.”

“Now look here, you –” Uncle Jon looked as if he wanted to scold him, but couldn’t quite do it because of the smile he was trying to hide. He did that very often. “Don’t go joking about Medjai clothes, especially around him. They can be a little touchy about some stuff. And besides, if someone deserves respect, it’s him. The number of times that bloke saved our necks…”

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, honest!” said Alex, who had had a great admiration for the Medjai chieftain ever since he first saw him, years and years ago on his first trip to Egypt. Even if the man’s sense of humour seemed to appear just as often as Uncle Jon’s conscience did. “And don’t worry, I’m not daft enough to joke about that in front of him.”

“I believe the English phrase for this sort of situation is, ‘Speak of the devil’…” said a quiet voice with an Eastern lilt somewhere near Jonathan. Alex’s uncle gave a start and turned wide eyes at the dark-clad shadow who had seemed to appear out of thin air just beside him. Ardeth Bay was standing there, wearing a dark brown cloak over his black and silver Medjai robes. His bright eyes were smiling as he lowered his hood.

“I say,” stammered Jonathan, one hand clutching his heart, “it’s jolly good to see you, Ardeth, old boy, but I’m getting a mite old for this sort of scare. How’s the family?”

“A pleasure to see you too, my friend.” Ardeth laughed quietly, shaking Uncle Jon’s hand as colour crept back up to the latter’s face. “They’re very well, thank you for asking. Ineni still worries that Maira is too serious for her age, and Sabni now insists on following his sister everywhere, even when he shouldn’t3.”

“Don’t I know the feeling,” said Jonathan fervently. Ardeth smiled at that, then gave a nod to Alex. The boy could have sworn that the dark eyes were twinkling.

“Good morning, Alex O’Connell. Don’t worry about offending me with jokes, I know you have good intentions. And a little humour at times cannot hurt.”

Okay. Point taken. It wasn’t the first time Alex thought the strange man could read minds.

“Hi, Ardeth,” he said with a grin, looking up and trying not to squint too much. _Bloody light_. “You’re here for the diamond, aren’t you?”

Ardeth raised his black eyebrows. “I see that the habit of getting straight to the point has passed on to the next generation in the O’Connell family.” Alex felt his cheeks grow warmer in spite of himself. If there was a person in the world who could, with a single glance, put him in his place, make sure he stayed there for a couple of seconds, _and_ manage to not make him feel rotten in the meanwhile, it was this man. He sure was imposing enough for it.

“Yes, I am indeed heading for the museum. Dr Hakim sent for me, and I set off as soon as I received the message.”

“That was pretty fast,” commented Jonathan with a low whistle as they walked a little away from the crowd of the bazaar. Ardeth nodded.

“In times of need, I have Neith to help me.”

Something dawned on Alex’s uncle’s face. “Oh – like Horus?”

“C’mon, Uncle Jon, Neith’s nothing to do with Horus in Egyptian Mythology!” Alex protested, unwilling to believe that Jonathan had forgotten that part. He had spent whole nights talking about Egyptian legends with his uncle when he couldn’t sleep.

“You are mistaken, young O’Connell,” said Ardeth. “Your uncle was speaking of a falcon friend of mine who once was of great help to me, sending word to the Twelve Tribes before the Rising of the Army of Anubis two years ago. I was quite grieved when he was killed over the Oasis of Ahm Shere.”

“Oh – sorry.” Alex felt uncomfortable. Not just because of his mistake, but also because of something that had seemed, for a split second, to cloud over the bright eyes. Even if all had been set up ages before it happened, as his mum had told him, it still seemed that a lot of people had got hurt as a direct consequence of his putting on the Bracelet. ‘No harm ever came from putting on a bracelet’, his mum would say, according to Dad. Well, it _had_ seemed like a good idea at the time.

“No harm done, Alexander,” said Ardeth, and Alex was somewhat relieved to see that his eyes were still smiling. Even though he still didn’t like it at all when people called him by his full name, even if it was Ardeth, who always called Mum ‘Evelyn’, not ‘Evy’ like Dad and his uncle Jon. “Neith is indeed a falcon; she’s fast, and quite clever, which is why Fahad sends her for long distance messages. And he’s explained everything that happened the day before yesterday.”

Alex saw the dark eyes flicker to the light bandage that showed slightly under Jonathan’s hat. Mum had insisted that he wore it till tonight, and he had reluctantly conceded.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, head hard as a rock – blighter banged with all his might, though. Thanks for the concern,” Jonathan said with a smile. Then he winced. “Blast it, now I think of it… As my ever so subtle brother-in-law once put it, ‘You’re here, bad guys are here’… There’s all this ominous doom and gloom going on with that blasted diamond… All we need now is Evy getting kidnapped, God forbid –”

“And another raising of the Creature happens?” ended Ardeth, one black eyebrow raised. The thought of someone’s sense of humour going on a holiday crossed Alex’s mind, and he clung to this idea to avoid thinking about the cold, empty eyes of Imhotep. “Hamunaptra has remained quiet ever since Hafez’s men stopped digging. We found the Book of the Living there, and we keep it under close watch, night and day. As for the Creature itself… Lucky would be the one who could manage to find its body under the sands of Ahm Shere. Besides, according to what Evelyn and O’Connell told me, it’s very unlikely that he would even be willing to be raised a third time. His love abandoned him.”

“You know, I still can’t believe how hurt he looked back then,” Uncle Jon said, looking thoughtful. “I actually felt sorry for the bloke, despite the whole Evil Mummy Enemy thing and everything he’d done. If he still had a heart at that point, I bet we all could’ve heard it shatter into little pieces.”

“Despite all the ancient resentment of my people against the Creature, I probably would have felt pity for him as well, had I been there,” Ardeth said, not departing from his quiet smile. “Feeling pity for an enemy can be thought of as a weakness by some, but it is one of our prerogatives as human beings.”

For all the respect he had for the serious Medjai leader, Alex could not understand this knack of his for long, intricate sentences that sounded like riddles. And it was a little bit frustrating to never be sure whether these were riddles or not. The only sign was the grin Ardeth would give afterwards, brief but always striking with a flash of white teeth against skin the colour of light coffee.

The grin came, although slightly subdued. “Nothing has been decided yet, so you do not have to worry,” said the Medjai, before looking intently at Jonathan and Alex in turn. “All I ask from you and your family is to keep yourselves out of this as much as possible. I don’t doubt that you would only be trying to help, but I don’t think that it would be a good idea, much as I value your aid and your friendship.”

“Tell that to Mum,” muttered Alex, scuffing at a little patch of earth. Ardeth’s eyes flashed to him.

“Your mother is known as a person who’ll do whatever she thinks is right,” he said seriously, “and even if that has led her into trouble many a time, it is still something to respect. Besides, not many people can say they were instrumental in saving the world twice.” Then the hint of a smile flickered over his face. “Although I must say that, despite all her good intentions, Evelyn O’Connell is also known for her stubbornness and her tendency of getting where she shouldn’t.”

“Amen to that, my friend!” Uncle Jon said with a wide grin, his blue eyes twinkling. “You seldom spoke a truer truth.”

The three of them shared a knowing smile. Then Ardeth looked around, before replacing the hood of his brown cloak over his head. His eyes, almost hidden in shadow, came to rest on Jonathan, and Alex in turn.

“Be sure to send my regards to Evelyn and O’Connell,” he said. “I don’t know whether I will be able to greet them myself.”

“Oh, come on, old chap, you’re always welcome to drop by anytime,” protested Uncle Jon heartily.

“Yeah,” added Alex. “It’d be smashing if you could come over some time. Really spiffing.”

Ardeth raised an eyebrow. “I suppose that means you’d be happy to see me?”

Alex chose to take that seriously. “Of course, honestly –” The crooked grin told him that someone’s sense of humour was back from holiday. Ardeth’s quiet chuckle echoed his.

“I may be seeing you in the future, then. Till then, good day.”

And he was gone. Only one second, and he had vanished into the crowd, his cloak blending perfectly.

“Do you know,” Jonathan said, squinting in the sun before lowering his eyes to his nephew, “I think Ardeth might enjoy being the dark and mysterious figure a little too much for his own good.”

“Probably,” answered Alex, as he felt a grin pull at the corner of his mouth. “But he does a damn great job of it. So who cares?”

This earned him a small laugh from his uncle Jon, who grinned down. “Let it be remembered that you were the voice of reason on this one, son.”

They were both laughing as they returned to the crowd of the bazaar. However, after a little while spent at looking at tents where they sold elaborate tea sets, hookahs, and loads of other jewellery, they had returned to arguing about Alex’s mum’s birthday.

“I’m just saying that you’re being entirely too negative about all this – there, look, maybe a good book will do nicely!”

They had just come across a display of a few old-looking books, and Alex had to admit that Jonathan was right. His mum loved books, especially old ones, and among these old ones she was mad about everything that had anything to do with Egypt.

They made for the table where the books lay, but Alex was growing more and more sceptical about it. There were few books he knew of which Mum didn’t have already. Still, it might be worth a try.

His hopes slowly dwindled as the two browsed the titles on the tattered covers, recognising most of the books for having seen them somewhere, either in the mansion – as Alex liked to call it – or their smaller house in Cairo.

“Tough luck,” sighed Uncle Jon as he put down yet another book, this one with the words _Cult of Cats in the XII__th__ Dynasty_ embossed in gold on the cover. “Seems that my dear sister owns every damn book out there about Egypt…”

“Jon? ‘That you?”

Jonathan turned, and Alex peered around his uncle to see Tom Ferguson standing near the table, a smile on his broad face.

“Hullo, Tommy,” said Jonathan, looking equally pleased. “Looking for something in particular?”

“Nah, not really.” Tommy shook his head, blond hair falling into his eyes. “I come to this tent every day to see if there’s somethin’ new out – I told you the other day I just have this thing for old books.” He leant over the table to greet the owner of the tent, who seemed to know him; they exchanged a few words in Arabic, which Alex didn’t catch all of, although he did understand that Tommy was asking for new acquisitions. He got a negative answer, and nodded his thanks, looking disappointed; then he turned back to Jonathan.

“Too bad… Been a couple of days since they got something new. What about you? What’re you doing here?”

“Playing at knight of the Quest for the Ultimate Birthday Present,” deadpanned Uncle Jon despondently, making his nephew chortle. “Evy’s birthday’s in three weeks, and I still haven’t got anything to give her.”

“Starting to get a little panicked there, are ya?” Tommy gave a laugh. “I know the feeling. You should see the rush I get into every year when it’s Liz’s birthday.”

“Is Liz your sister then?” asked Alex. If it was, then he was definitely not keen on having a little sibling some day. He had enough trouble managing to scrape together for presents for three people at Christmases and birthdays.

Tommy smiled. “No, Elizabeth’s me wife.”

“Ah – sorry, my mistake.” But that didn’t make Alex change his mind about little siblings.

“Oh, before I forget!” exclaimed Tommy, switching subjects with an easiness that made Alex wonder. “Good thing I bumped into you now, ‘cause Hamilton’d like to see you about what happened the day before yesterday – for the report, you know. I was going to send you a telegram, but since you’re here… Tomorrow at four.”

“Hamilton? Your boss?” Jonathan frowned. “Why’s that? Isn’t your report enough?”

Tommy shrugged. “That’s the rule of the Department – gather information from as many sources as possible. You must’ve noticed that with the file I lent you… My superiors are maniacs whenever rules are concerned.”

There was a short silence, then Tommy gave a nod towards Jonathan’s head, and asked rather uncomfortably, “Speaking of the other day… Does it still hurt?”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “What are you people making such a fuss for, honestly? I got coshed on the head, so what? I’m quite all right, thank you.” Then he stopped, and looked at Tommy, something softening on his face. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Tommy with a wave of his hand. “For once I got lucky – you got the short end of the stick.” He was silent for a second, and Alex found that he could relate to the guy’s hesitation. He always felt slightly uneasy himself when dealing with concern for someone that wasn’t his mum. It was so much easier to be Mum’s little boy than a big, tough guy, even if it was more embarrassing… Of course, being Dad’s big guy had its advantages. Then again, Dad hadn’t been a mum’s little boy for very long. That was something Alex just couldn’t imagine, a boy without a mum.

At least, he had never come to imagine it before the events at Ahm Shere two years ago. Afterwards, he’d wondered sometimes what his life would’ve been without his mum, and he had always kept this train of thought brief. As Ardeth had said at some point, while the memories of the past were a precious thing, it did a man no good to dwell upon them. Yes, it had to be something along those lines.

“Not to insist or anything, but – I’m serious, mate, you really got me scared back there. When I came round, I saw your sister bent over you, your head was bleedin’… Believe me, you looked dead.”

For once, Alex was glad he was not eye-level with the adults. It would have been difficult not to look too conspicuous as he felt his cheeks lose their colour and his stomach do a somersault. While worry for Mum and Dad when they ventured into those creepy pyramids full of traps had become such a familiar feeling that he was _almost_ used to it, he had never had an opportunity to think that someday, his uncle might not be there. Well, not quite: for a few seconds, down in the pyramid, he’d feared that his mum would be too late to stop that witch Anck-su-namun as her arm came down to stab Jonathan. It would’ve been awful if his uncle died just as his mum came back. As that old but funny Irish bloke4 had once said, losing one family member was a tragedy. Losing two was carelessness.

Jonathan looked slightly uncomfortable for a second, then his old grin was back on his face as he quipped, “Well, considering Evy’s propensity to wake the dead, I wouldn’t have stayed that way for long, would I? Besides, I can recall some occurrences when the two of us ended looking more dead than alive. Let me think, there was this incident with the girls’ college…”

Puzzled but highly interested, Alex looked from Uncle Jon to Tommy, whose brown eyes, which had seemed a little dimmed during these last minutes, lit up suddenly. “Oh, yeah, I remember. I reckon I was the one to blame for this… But _you_ chatted up the wrong girl in the Oxford Arms, and we ended up having to hide in that cellar for two days after that.”

All right. This was getting more and more interesting, and Alex made a mental note to ask his uncle about it later. He also wondered briefly at Jonathan’s disconcerting ability for changing subjects. All trace of uneasiness had disappeared, and the two men wore an identical grin on their faces.

“Well, it’s good to see you’re all right – and that this blow on your head didn’t erase fond school memories,” said Tommy with a lopsided smile that Uncle Jon returned. “I do hope that nobody’s getting hurt next time we’re in the same room, though.”

Alex couldn’t help but grin. That was something Mum used to say – with a slight variation – the first few times she left him in Jonathan’s care for an entire evening. She seemed to think that, as soon as she left them together without her to watch over, disaster would swoop down on the house faster than you could say ‘catastrophe’. _‘And I hope that nobody will be hurt next time I enter the room!’_ How many times had he heard it?

“And it’s equally good to see that your skull is as hard as it once was,” retorted Jonathan in the same tone of voice. “So – tomorrow at four, then?”

“Yeah, at my office. And don’t be late!” Tommy said in a mock stern tone, pointing a warning finger at him. “Hamilton can be moderately pleasant when he wants to, but he has a thing for punctuality, and you don’t want to be near him when he’s in a bad mood.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, don’t worry.”

“See ya, then!”

“Cheers!”

Tommy shook Uncle Jon’s hand, gently clapped Alex’s shoulder and left with a last grin. Unlike Ardeth, who had seemed to merge into the landscape in the twinkling of an eye, it was a little while before his broad frame disappeared from sight.

“Uncle Jon…” said Alex after a few seconds as a thought crossed his mind. “What _did_ happen at that girls’ college?”

Blue eyes looked down at him, twinkling. “I do think that if I ever told you, and your dad happened to hear about it, he’d kill me on the spot and put my head in a frame on the wall.”

Alex was silent for a moment, long enough to get the mental picture right; then he grinned up at Jonathan. “And what about this – ‘incident’ in the Oxford Arms? You could tell me about that, couldn’t you?”

Jonathan scratched the back of his neck before grinning sheepishly. “If I did, then your dad would have to dig me up so he could kill me again. Oh, and I’m sure your mum would give him a hand.”

_Whoa_. It sounded definitely worth it. “That bad, eh?”

“Maybe when you’re a little older. Just a little.” It really had to be serious, because Alex knew that his uncle was aware of his dislike for such excuses. To his credit, he didn’t use them very often.

“But you _will_ tell me some day, right, Uncle Jon?” he asked earnestly. Jonathan grinned.

“Right-ho, partner. Promise I will. Now let’s get a present for your mum, shall we?”

Happy to have his uncle’s promise, Alex followed him into the coloured crowd of robes and suits, still clinging to his hand.

_Not a piece of jewellery, not a dress, not a book…_ Maybe a camel would do the trick, after all.

* * *

1aka. a pith helmet.

2Pantomine – a play where every male character is played by a woman, and vice versa. I actually did one about Snow White when I studied English in uni. I played a stoner version of either Sleepy or Sneezy. It was hilarious and I had a great time.

3We don’t know much about Medjai naming traditions, do we? The only one we have is Ardeth, which comes from Hebrew and is traditionally a female name. I ended up giving the Medjai both Egyptian and Ancient Egyptian first names.

4That’s Oscar Wilde, in _The Importance of Being Earnest_: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”


	6. Camels, Cars, and Cabals

There were many ways to begin an interview with a British Consulate official. One of them could be “Good afternoon to you, sir, what it is that you want from me?” Another one – depending upon your degree of familiarity with the person you addressed, of course – would be “What ho, old thing, heard you wanted a word!” But “Sorry I’m late, I was being savaged by a wild camel” was definitely not the smartest option.

Yet it was one that Jonathan was starting to consider seriously as the hairy – could he call it a snout, or a muzzle? – thing kept sending its foul breath into his face. Another minute and viscous drool was going to drip down on him. He resisted the urge to yelp for someone to get him the hell out of here. The beast would surely not react nicely to sudden noise and movement.

Urgh.

Nasty, smelly bugger.

“I am so very sorry, sir,” he heard the girl say, and from the corner of his eye he saw her pulling on the camel’s bit with all her might. “He’s normally very calm – my father trained him well, I think he’s only trying to play…”

“That’s all right,” Jonathan managed to say, trying to remain calm and sound offhand, however hard it was when you were being pinned down by a smelly camel’s snouty muzzle thing. “Stuff like this has happened before. I’m not quite fond of these beasts, and it appears it’s mutual.”

Trying to play… Right. He had just been walking down the street to the British Consulate, and as this blasted camel passed him by, it had escaped its owner’s grasp and nuzzled into his chest till he fell over. Not content with this victory, it had showed big chunks of yellow teeth each time Jonathan attempted to get up. Jonathan had found himself pinned to the ground, unable to move, as the Egyptian girl the camel belonged to pulled and pulled at the animal’s reins, all the while apologising profusely.

Finally, a sympathetic passer-by came to lend the girl a hand with the stubborn beast, and Jonathan was soon on his feet, dusting himself off energetically. Up close, the girl looked near tears.

“Really, sir, I’m so sorry – can I help you with anything? Just…”

“Don’t worry, miss, everything’s fine. I just hope that your camel doesn’t throw itself at everyone else in the street, that’s all.” The girl looked upset enough, and he didn’t have the heart to get angry. The blush on her cheeks took off the last remnants of his irritation. Besides, it had been directed at the camel, which now stood a few feet away, peacefully munching on something the Good Samaritan had stuffed into its mouth as a distraction.

The girl slowly pushed her tangled hair out of her face and he had the pleasure of seeing a tiny smile. It was timid, still a bit fearful, but a smile all the same. “Thank you, bāša1. Djem does that sometimes; it is his way to tell people he likes them. I try to stop him, because those he annoys get quite angry at us.”

“Well, although I’m flattered, I would certainly like – Djem – best if he stayed away from me,” answered Jonathan with a smile, finishing checking his clothes for traces of dust that would not do in front of Tommy’s boss. Then he raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘angry at us’?”

“I am responsible for my camel’s behaviour,” stated the girl. “So if Djem misbehaves, I am the one to blame.” She hesitated a bit before adding, “Last time, he went after a European woman. She hit him and slapped me.”

Jonathan shook his head in disgust. People who thought nothing of hitting a kid in the street were sadly too common, especially when they were white and the child was not. That blasted woman had absolutely no right to do that, but what could the girl do when everything conspired to push her and her camel to the bottom of the societal ladder?

“What’s your name?” he asked in mostly decent Arabic. He’d been able to hold entire conversations with his mother as a boy, but his vocabulary and pronunciation had suffered from lack of practice since her death.

The girl’s dark eyebrows shot up behind her curtain of hair.

“Satiah, sir.”

“Satiah, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. She should never have done that.”

She blinked, and actually smiled. Whether that was in acknowledgement or because she found his attempt at Arabic funny, Jonathan couldn’t tell. Both suited him just fine, so he answered with a smile of his own.

“Anyway,” he added in English, noticing the time – good thing he had left home early! “I’m sorry to cut off, but I have an appointment I can’t afford to miss. Have a good day, and take good care of your Djem. He seems a good fellow, for all that he likes to kiss people without permission.” That said with a smile, to avoid misunderstandings.

“A good day to you as well, bāša,” said young Satiah in her lilting, fluty voice. “May Sopdet smile upon you!”

As Jonathan walked away, quickening his pace to make up for lost time, the Egyptian girl’s last words seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds. The encounter puzzled him. ‘Satiah’ was not an Egyptian name – or rather, it was, just three millennia out of date. And she had called upon the goddess Sopdet for her blessings. It had been a long time since he had heard someone call the star Sirius by its Ancient Egyptian name, and it was even more startling coming from an unassuming slip of a girl who didn’t look more than fifteen.

Undoubtedly, Egypt had been and would always remain a _very_ strange place, Jonathan mused as he came near the British Consulate, the tune of a fast Django Reinhardt song making its way round his brain.

He had yet to remember its title when he knocked on Tommy’s office door.

“C’min!”

“Don’t you ever ask who’s behind that door before inviting people in?” Jonathan grinned as he crossed the threshold. “You could get some unpleasant surprises.”

“Who would bother to knock at that door if they didn’t have good intentions?” retorted Tommy, rising from behind his desk to shake his hand. The room looked tidier than it had done the other day. There were still a large number of boxes on the ground, but a spot had been cleared on the desk, the files piled up in heaps along the edges, making it look like a re-enactment of the Red Sea parting before Moses. This time he did not have a lot of time to gaze around as Tommy picked up his jacket and headed for the door.

“Hamilton’s office’s just round that corner, but he’s such a stickler for rules and manners that he doesn’t like it when people come to his office unannounced. Blimey, you’re actually on time!” the Liverpudlian remarked suddenly, sounding surprised, as his eyes caught the clock.

“You didn’t think I’d make it, did you?” Jonathan smirked. “O thee of little faith.”

Tommy only snorted at that as he stopped to knock on an imposing door. They waited a little, then a low-pitched voice answered from inside, “Come in.”

Tommy opened the door, and Jonathan had a view of a very neat, tidy room, with lots of files and books lying on shelves, which seemed to be classified a lot more methodically than in Tommy’s office. The light was dim, filtering from under the shutters pulled over the windows to shelter the room from the heat outside. It was rather successful, and the coolness in the office was very welcome.

However, as his gaze lowered from the windows to the desk, and the man behind it, Jonathan couldn’t help a peculiar sort of feeling, as if he had suddenly walked into something devoid of any warmth at all. And what was more peculiar, this feeling seemed to emanate from the occupant of the office. Everything about this fellow appeared to be grey: his hair, his skin – odd, considering that the bright Egyptian sun spared no one – and his eyes. Especially his eyes. Even the curator of the Museum of Antiquities had flashes of warmth in his eyes, at least when he looked at Evy, or one of his colleagues.

Otherwise, Charles Hamilton looked in every respect like the portrait Tommy had made of him – square jaw, square shoulders, back straight as if he’d had an umbrella stuck up his backside. Just a little boring. The only thing that stood out about him was the impression of a very _clean_ man. His light grey suit was deceptively perfect, with absolutely no creases despite the heat. He stared very calmly at the newcomer from behind half-moon spectacles, his fingers crossed in front of him.

“Jonathan Carnahan, sir,” said Tommy from behind Jonathan, and Hamilton nodded.

“Thank you, Ferguson.”

A last encouraging glance, and Tommy closed the door, leaving his friend alone with the vampire.

“You are exactly on time, Mr Carnahan. Please, do take a seat.”

Jonathan did take a seat, unconsciously straightening his back as he would when, as a child, he’d have to sit somewhere and endure some lecture or other unpleasant stuff.

Unless the person who gave the lecture was Evy, of course. Then he’d make a point of slouching in the chair and looking foppish, offhand, and undeterred.

For the sake of his dignity, he tried to look a little more relaxed. But the steel in the bloke’s eyes and voice made it impossible. Unsettle the opponent while keeping on a mask. The perfect poker attitude.

“Listen to me well, Mr Carnahan,” Hamilton said, his armchair moaning slightly as he leant to put his elbows on the desk. “The reason you are here is very simple, and I’m sure you will understand why I required your presence.”

That was it – to think of him as an opponent at a poker game. Jonathan tried to imagine him behind a deck of cards, and his unease vanished as soon as the picture was precise enough. He was in his element.

“As you probably know, my name is Charles Hamilton, and I am one of the chief agents in the British Antique Research Department in Cairo. Although this city holds many priceless archaeological items, our main focus for two years has been one object in particular which you know very well. I think you can guess which treasure I am talking about.”

“The diamond taken from Ahm Shere.”

“Exactly.” He had a slight Essex accent, but that failed to add any life to his voice. Every word fell weirdly flat. “I believe you were incidental in this… taking. According to records, you were the one who sold it to the Museum.”

“Indeed.” That particular point seemed to be widely known, but good Lord, what _did__n’t_ they keep a record of?

“Would you be so kind as to tell me of the circumstances of this acquisition?”

Something tightened slightly in Jonathan’s stomach. Due to the very personal nature of some what had happened, most of what he had told Tommy last Tuesday had been strictly off the record. What was exactly the extent of that Department’s knowledge about the events of Ahm Shere? There were so many secrets involved… What did they know about the Book of the Dead? The role of the Medjai, and the former curator of the British Museum? Did they know that Alex had been the one who’d led everyone there? Did they know that Rick had killed the Scorpion King?

Did this fellow, who sat calmly behind his desk, know that his baby sister had actually died, back there?

Years of poker playing and the – oh, occasional – lying served Jonathan well and he didn’t let any muscle of his face twitch. Instead, he gave a smile of his own, bordering on a smirk.

“By all means I will, although my memory’s not quite what it used to be. I think you should ask Dr Hakim for the details of the purchase –”

“No, no, Mr Carnahan, I appear to have expressed myself badly,” said Hamilton, his grey eyes still fixed on Jonathan’s face. “By ‘acquisition’, I meant how the diamond came to fall into your hands.”

“My mistake, sir.” Should he continue to stall, or come clean straight away? “Don’t you already know the story?”

A small smile stretched the thin lips. “What I am interested in is a short version of _your_ story. The reports I have read shed definite light on these shady events, but hearing a person who was actually there can change one’s perception of such events.”

_Hmm. Right. Let’s go for the abridged version, then._

Jonathan’s description of the events of Ahm Shere was definitely shorter; without knowing why, he did not feel like telling this man everything he had told Tommy – maybe it was a matter of trust. He told Hamilton of the Bracelet, the mad race across the desert to get Alex back, the reunion at Ahm Shere, about Rick’s slaying of the Scorpion King and how he had managed to grab the diamond before the pyramid sank into the sand. Of the Book of the Dead, the Medjai, Imhotep and his wench, and their murder of Evy, he said nothing. First, he didn’t feel like talking about something so fiercely private, let alone to this living tin man. Also, the Medjai were a wild card, one that he didn’t have any intention of laying down just yet. Finally, some things were just too important to just share with a total stranger.

After he had finished, Hamilton, who had been listening silently throughout the story, leaned back in his armchair, his hand resting thoughtfully against his mouth. “I see. That is indeed quite a story, Mr Carnahan. The taste for hazardous archaeological expeditions continues to run in the family, or so it would appear.”

The ambiguous phrasing surprised Jonathan, who narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth; but before he could say anything, Hamilton leant forward again to pick up a fountain pen and a piece of paper, and said, “Well, you probably imagine that I did not summon you to hear something I already know. My principal interest is, of course, your take on what happened last Wednesday – events of which you and my subordinate Thomas Ferguson were the unfortunate casualties.”

Still puzzled about the Department official’s previous remark, Jonathan told him about what had happened three days ago – this account was just as short as the one he’d given Alex, maybe even shorter. Hamilton occasionally scribbled something down on his paper as his guest talked.

“…And when I woke up, the diamond was stolen, and the assistant no longer there. Dr Hakim seems to think that he was in fact a mole, and so far the events – or lack thereof – have proven him right.”

“He has not reappeared, has he?”

Jonathan shook his head. “No, and if I may venture an opinion… I don’t think he will.” Evy had also said as much, adding that Jamal Hassan’s job was done, and that it would probably be dangerous for him if he showed up again.

Hamilton nodded gravely, and put his pen on the desk before crossing his fingers in front of him again. “Well, thank you. This meeting has been very enlightening, and the information you gave me will be filed up and kept preciously.” He rose to make his guest know that the interview was over, and Jonathan stood up as well, despite the numerous questions that boggled his mind. “I’m afraid I’ll have to make this short, I have some appointments that cannot be delayed – I am a busy man. It has been a pleasure, Mr Carnahan. I look forward to our next encounter.”

“Pleasure meeting you as well, sir,” answered Jonathan, shaking the offered hand. Then Hamilton’s last words caught up with him and he paused, puzzled. “Not to be rude or anything, but… what makes you think there _will_ be a next encounter?”

The grey-haired man gave a small smile. “As I take it, you are friends with Thomas Ferguson, aren’t you? I might have the luck of seeing you in the corridors some time.”

“Of course.” Jonathan nodded, and turned to walk to the door. Before going out, he threw a last glance at Hamilton, who was again sitting behind his desk, his pen back in his hand. The strange man caught his gaze and gave him that peculiar smile of his that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

It was not without a hint of relief that Jonathan closed the door behind him. Curiously enough, the temperature seemed to rise up again, as if he’d just walked out of a cold room.

“So…” said a laughing but quiet voice, and the cheerful tone in it was very welcome. “Nosferatu didn’ eat you alive, did he?”

Tommy was standing in the corridor, casually leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a goofy grin on his face. He motioned Jonathan away from the door, and when they were far enough, the Southerner ran a hand through his hair and grinned back at his friend.

“Didn’t try to, anyway. But don’t worry – I’ve teeth, too.”

“You stayed a long time in there,” said Tommy, more seriously. “What’d he ask you?”

“Oh, stuff about Ahm Shere and my ‘account’ of what happened the day before yesterday, obviously. This bloke is creepier than some mummies I encountered.” Jonathan paused, then, ignoring the little voice in his head that called him a complete fool, asked a little uncertainly, “That fellow, he’s been working in here for a long time?”

“Yeah, I know, he doesn’t look like he sees the light of day that much,” Tommy laughed, then stopped as Jonathan shook his head.

“I mean – how long’s he been working here for – in the Department?”

“I dunno…” His friend looked thoughtful as he tapped his forefinger against his chin. “Ages. He was already working here when I arrived… Why d’you ask me that?”

“Because…” Jonathan hesitated a moment before finally answering, “He mentioned my family, and I thought he might’ve known my parents, you know?” Tommy gave him a peculiar look, something between surprise and sympathy. Jonathan waved it off, feeling his cheeks grow hot. “Bah, forget it. I’ll just ask him one of those days – it’s not like it’s important.”

“Jon, this _is_ important,” Tommy protested, and Jonathan cursed himself for having brought up the subject in the first place. “This is about your parents, dammit – if you don’t want to ask him, I could –”

“No. Please. Forget it,” Jonathan interrupted him in a definite tone, not wanting his friend to get maudlin about it. “Besides, it’s more than likely that he’s just heard some story or other about them. In their time, they were quite famous in their line of work, after all.”

Tommy was silent for a minute, looking uncomfortable, and Jonathan had the time to feel his cheeks cool down to a more normal state. What had Alex said, the other time? _‘We’re lads, you know how it goes.’_

Yes, he knew.

“C’mon,” Tommy finally said, clapping his friend’s shoulder energetically, “it’s all right – you’ve the right to be pig-headed about personal stuff. Now let’s get you someplace cheery. What about that Sultan’s Casbah?”

Jonathan couldn’t help a smile. After having recovered from the bear-like clap that had driven all air from his lungs, that is. “That’d be nice. But don’t you have work to do?”

Tommy gave him a milder version of the evil eye. “You might not have noticed, but it’s Saturday. Hence, no work for me today.”

“Then tell me what the hell you are doing here?” Jonathan asked, a good-natured smirk pulling at his mouth. Tommy’s evil eye improved a lot.

“‘That your way of thanking me for coming to work on a Saturday for you?”

Jonathan actually let out a laugh. “You – don’t tell me you were dumb enough to come just to introduce me to Hamilton!”

There was a beat. Then Tommy cleared his throat, and walked past his friend towards the building’s exit. “Let’s get started, now, shall we?”

Jonathan was still sniggering when they left the British Consulate, and Tommy had rarely looked closer to sulking.

* * *

Cairo was always changing.

When Rick used to live there, from 1910 to 1921, the city already had many faces: from Downtown Cairo with its imposing European-style buildings and gleaming cars to the little desert towns on the outskirts where the main means of transportation had been camels and horses – with a preference for the first, because of their never-ending endurance and resistance to the harsh conditions of the desert.

The part of town he’d called his was definitely the latter rather than the former. There had been no real streets, only more or less broad paths of earth, dotted with shit and detritus. The fort and the biggest buildings were already there as they were now, and some houses too, but they stood like white oases lost in swathes of dirty yellow sand. If you climbed onto a rooftop, you could see the heart of the city in the distance, with its light stone buildings, its tall bridges, and its broad streets well-lit with gas street lights.

Not so now.

In place of most of the once-familiar bumpy earth roads now lay tarred streets on which cars were slowly replacing camels. On the pavements, lit by a growing number of electric street lamps, walked almost as many Cairo residents as foreigners, tourists or adventure-seekers, and the contrast was stark between the flashy ladies’ suits, the colourful, but simpler djellabas of the men, and the darker, soberer clothes of the Egyptian women, most of whom wore veils.

And it wasn’t as if the Egyptian metropolis was the only place that was different from what he remembered. London was now officially the place where he had lived the longest, and he could actually witness the changes taking place day by day. On top of the usual smog, the city was growing darker with all the gas escaping from cars’ exhaust pipes. While a few years ago the wireless had been a luxury which only a handful of rich folks could afford, pretty much everybody owned a set these days, even if the news from the world they received through it did not always sound cheerful. There was war raging on in Spain, and rumour had it that Italy and Germany were about to get involved in the slaughter as well. Germany’s chancellor had annexed and rearmed the Rhineland, and though he did appear as a rather harmless eccentric, he was still an eccentric who had slowly but surely gotten a ragged post-war Germany back on its feet… according to his fans, anyway, which he had a lot of even in England. Since those were also the kind to foam at the mouth about Jewish people or Jesse Owens winning so much gold in the last Olympics, the last thing Rick wanted was to waste time talking to them.

The American stopped his musings to look up at the sky. It was about five in the afternoon, and it had turned from a wide, blinding stretch of white to a wide, blinding stretch of light blue. In a few hours, the blue would gradually deepen, before growing ink-black and sprinkled with small but bright stars. He had so often slept under them that he had found it unsettling to be unable to see them on his first nights in London, but they remained visible in Cairo, as long as you were in the right neighbourhood.

The stars were not his major concern right now. Evy had taken Alex to the Museum for the afternoon, and Rick, left to his own devices and faced with the prospect of an afternoon of boredom, had decided to roam the town in search for a good time. A reasonable good time, of course, as Evelyn and her principles had somewhat changed his definition of a ‘good time’.

It was good to be back on Cairo’s streets, just another face in the crowd, no matter how he might look. It was just not the same thing in London. You didn’t get the same faces – some people here had mugs you just couldn’t find anywhere else. Winston Havlock, for instance, or the warden who’d tagged along with them to Hamunaptra.

Rick turned round a corner and chuckled inwardly. He had been unconsciously heading for the Sultan’s Casbah. Maybe that was why Winston had seemed to pop up into his mind for no apparent reason. As for Warden Hassan, he had no idea why he had thought of that poor bastard.

The Casbah was still as dingy and dark as he had known it, but now thrill-seeking tourists could be seen mingling with the rougher, shadier regulars.

It looked like the whole world was definitely changing.

“Rick O’Connell, I presume.”

Rick gave a small laugh. He’d know that British accent anywhere.

He turned, and sure enough, was met with a pair of slightly slanted blue eyes and a smirk.

“Fancy seeing you here, old boy, of all places.”

“It’s five in the afternoon, Jonathan,” the American said, his voice quietly mocking. “Bit early to go looking for trouble in a bar, even for you.”

“Tut-tut, my good son. What makes you think I go _looking_ for trouble?”

“’Cause trouble usually finds ya.” Rick looked from Jonathan to Ferguson. “Sorry, didn’t see you there. Ferguson, is it?”

“Yeah, Thomas Ferguson,” said the guy, holding out a hand which Rick shook. “I don’t know Cairo that much, so Jon here was showing me around – typical sights and all that.” He grinned, and Rick got the impression that he and Jonathan shared the same sense of humour. _Lord have mercy._

“Come on, instead of talking nonsense, come and have a drink with us!” Jonathan suggested enthusiastically. “I could use a little bit of cheering up, to tell the truth – I’ve just met Nosferatu.”

“Nos who now?” The name was not entirely unfamiliar to Rick, who searched his memory. “Oh, right, that old creep from the moving pictures. Did you bump into the actor or something?”

“No, his boss –” Jonathan pointed to Tommy “– wanted to see me about what happened at the Museum. Seems that the Research Department was keeping an eye on the diamond.”

“And this guy looked like a vampire?”

“The closest to the real thing I’ve ever seen.” His brother-in-law’s eyes shifted from Rick to a large camel led by a small Egyptian girl. An amused smile replaced the previous smirk, and he gave a little friendly wave. Rick arched an eyebrow, surprised.

“You know that girl?”

“Her camel, mostly. Knowing you, I bet you’d find the story very funny.”

“I’m not sure I wanna know,” Rick said, before looking at Ferguson, who shrugged to show he didn’t know what his friend was talking about either. After a second’s thinking, though, he turned back to Jonathan, frowning slightly.

“Actually I’d like to know. What did you –?”

“Gentlemen? Would you come with us, if you please?”

The voice was low-pitched and sharp, and as Rick turned round, he saw that it matched its owner perfectly. The guy who had just gotten out of the black Lincoln parked a few feet away wore a dark suit and felt hat, and small glasses; his face was, for the lack of a better word, blank. The two others standing on either side of him, wearing similar suits and fedoras completed a picture that was very odd, and not a little bit spooky.

Tommy’s blond eyebrow shot up as Jonathan’s blue eyes narrowed. “Uh, to where?” Rick asked, his instinct awakening in his guts. “You lost or something?”

“No, we’re not,” said Oddball Number Two, on the left of Oddball Number One. “Please be so kind as to follow us.”

“We didn’t do it, whatever it is,” Jonathan, his voice a little more high-pitched than ordinary – maybe it was the idea of these strange guys asking for him, or else Rick was perhaps not the only one with instincts. Unless it was just Jonathan being Jonathan. “What do you think we did, by the way?”

His question was met with a smile. It seemed like a term adequate enough to describe it, although Rick had once seen a rather similar expression flicker over Imhotep’s face. His regenerated face, of course.

“You will be informed in due time. Please follow us – now.”

“Rick…” muttered Jonathan, low enough to prevent the Oddball Gang from hearing the words, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

“Think _I_ do?” Rick retorted between clenched teeth, before willing his lips into a smile, which turned out to be just as grim as Oddball Number Three’s. “You know what? I don’t like it much when people order me around for absolutely no reason. So, you have two options. One, you tell us where the hell you want to take us, and why. Or you keep your mouth shut and you walk away from us. Pick one.”

Something changed very slightly on Number One’s face, and as the doors of the black Lincoln opened again, three more dark-clad men getting out, Rick realised that a real, intentional smirk was in fact pulling at his mouth. The rear guard Oddballs went to stand behind the original three, their hands in their trouser pockets so that the gun holsters showed under their jackets.

He heard Jonathan beside him gulp uneasily.

“Now listen here, chaps – we don’t want any sort of trouble,” the Englishman said, and Rick, who knew him well, could discern a rising note of fear in his voice. He wasn’t sure anyone else had spotted that as well, though. The man was a better actor than his sister when he wanted to. “So let’s stay calm, and converse like civilised people. I’m sure there’s got to be an error somewhere –”

Jonathan’s voice trailed off as Oddballs Two and Three took out their own guns and pointed them directly at him.

“There is no ‘error’, Mr Carnahan,” stated Number One coolly, very calmly. “This is simply an invite for you to join us. We don’t want any trouble either.”

None of them moved, and the situation seemed to settle as a stalemate. Rick called himself every name he could think of for having gone out without a gun, even a small one. His gut feeling was now screaming at him not to follow these guys. And there had not been a single occasion when he had listened to his instinct and done the wrong thing.

Okay, maybe just once or twice.

To his left, he could see Jonathan’s face growing paler, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. Aside from these, he showed no other signs of fear, and stood firmly his ground. Were it not for the circumstances, Rick would have allowed a smile. The world was changing, but so were a few people around him, it seemed.

‘_Yes, yes, it’s obviously very fine heroics, O’Connell,_’ Jonathan had said on occasion when past events were discussed. Rick could easily recall the sarcastic look in his brother-in-law’s eyes and the matching note in the English-accented voice. ‘_But there _are_ times when backing __down__ really is the smartest option, you know._’ Thinking back on it, Rick realised that it was one of the rare occurrences where Jonathan’s view had matched Ardeth Bay’s. _Live today, fight tomorrow_.

Where was that doggone Medjai when you needed him?

From the corner of his eye, Rick looked past Jonathan over to the streets, half-wishing Ardeth to materialise out of the blue to help them, like he sometimes did. Time was not stopping for them, as he saw that almost nobody had noticed what was going on in that shaded alley… Almost nobody.

For there was somebody. The young Egyptian girl he’d seen earlier, her right hand clutching at the reins of her camel, was standing near a wall, her eyes fixed on them. From where he stood, Rick couldn’t see her very well, but the expression on her face half-hidden by long, tangled hair was clearly fear. It slowly shifted to nervous determination as their eyes met, and she nodded.

The American couldn’t see what was coming, but he knew _something_ was coming. He looked back toward Number One, who was saying, his voice grating like steel against steel, “…starting to become preposterous. This is not an invite, this is an order! We are armed, you are not, the wisest choice for you would be to come quietly, don’t you –”

Number One’s head snapped toward the main street at Rick’s left as a camel came galloping in their direction, bawling like he’d just escaped hell. The Egyptian girl was running behind the stray beast, appearing to try to catch it and not doing a very good job of it. As the camel tumbled into the Oddball rear guard, causing much confusion among the ranks, Rick lost no time and ran like a maniac, grabbing Ferguson, who had stood frozen the entire time, by the collar of his jacket, Jonathan on his heels.

A split second’s look behind them was enough to understand that the Oddball gang had no intention of abandoning the pursuit. In fact, three were getting back into the Lincoln, and the other three were already after them on foot.

The situation was getting a little desperate. This was almost the outskirts of the city, which meant a clear enough path for the car, and there was very little chance the Gang would not catch up with them.

That’s when Rick noticed that Jonathan wasn’t with them anymore.

“Shit!”

Before he could ask Ferguson about it, say anything at all, or even decide between fury or concern for his brother-in-law, a loud horn pierced the din, and both Ferguson and the American whirl to find a brown, curly-haired head emerging from a convertible idling nearby. The motor was roaring.

“C’mon, get in! We haven’t got all day, for cripes’ sake!”

Not sense wasting time in asking where this car came from, or even how Jonathan had managed to get it running without keys. Rick, followed by Ferguson, leaped over the door as the car shot off at top speed, its tyres screeching. Familiar with Jonathan’s ‘emergency’ driving, Rick clung at whatever he could grasp, and saw Ferguson, looking kind of pale, do the same as he yelled, “PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN, JON!”

_Never a good adventure without a good scare on the road_, thought Rick, looking behind to see the three remaining Oddballs rush into the Lincoln and after them. This was the third time he was forced to escape in a car, or at least a motored vehicle. At least, the two first times they’d had weapons to defend themselves, and Ardeth on their side, which had been a considerable advantage, to use one of those understatements Brits were so fond of. The first time, their opponents had been a large, crazed mob of zombies possessed by Imhotep. The second, it had been four decaying mummy warriors woken up by Imhotep.

Now, this time, they were being pursued by six men, all-human, non-mummy regular guys. But it looked as if the difference was slim, as these men seemed to be vying for their blood as well.

While every bump and pothole in the road brought the car closer to flying, Rick wondered whether their old mummy buddy had a part in all of this. If he did, then things didn’t look so bad – they were kind of used to the end of the world, after all, and Rick had at least the promise of some serious mummy ass kicking before the end. That was already something.

Ferguson glanced behind, and yelled, “They’re gettin’ closer, Jon! Where are you driving to exactly?”

“I have no bloody idea!” yelled back Jonathan, his hands clasping the wheel so tight that his knuckles were white. Rick had to carefully keep to his side of the car, as far as possible from the driver, who kept turning the wheel so sharply his elbows sometimes missed Rick’s face by inches. Alex would probably have found his uncle’s antics hilarious. _Thank God he’s not here_.

He turned from the black car still following them to the landscape ahead of them. A landscape which he knew quite well, for having followed Evy down there countless of times.

“Jonathan!” Rick shouted, trying to point to the direction without letting go too much – the car’s jerks would have thrown him out easily. “Next street to the left leads to Giza – take it!”

“What’s that you said?”

“GIZA! On your LEFT! Take the NEXT STREET to Giza!”

“Right-ho, partner!”

Just as he said those words, Jonathan gave a deadly turn of the wheel, and had Rick and Ferguson not been holding on for dear life, that would have been their last ride. It would be a sheer miracle if all of Rick’s organs were still in the right place, because his insides sure felt all mixed up.

Still, it worked.

The Lincoln roared past the street in a flash, and the three of them cheered as the road to Giza stretched ahead of them, across the Nile. The top of the Great Pyramid was already in sight, and it seldom had been such a welcome one. Sure, it would take the Gang little time to slow down and make a U-turn, but that little stunt had at least bought them some time. Rick allowed himself to relax slightly, and he saw Ferguson sag a bit in the back seat. The Englishman looked a little green around the edges. Hell, Rick felt slightly sick to the stomach himself. At least, the other two times, he’d had something to keep busy with, like zombies and mummies, and afterwards he couldn’t tell the bruises he’d got from them from the ones he’d got from Jonathan’s driving.

Now, being forced to actually pay attention to the road, Rick had to admit that he definitely wasn’t feeling quite comfortable when his brother-in-law was driving on such extreme occasions. Even if this was their only lifesaver.

A weird noise coming from the inside of the automobile interrupted his line of thought and he stared worriedly at a point somewhere near his ankle. “Something wrong?”

Jonathan opened his mouth to answer, but was cut by Ferguson’s cry of “Hey! They’re back!”

They were. The shiny black Lincoln was racing again behind them, the sight even stranger on this almost desert road, under that sun. It reminded Rick of a black bug in the middle of the desert.

And the noise in the engine wasn’t stopping. On the contrary.

“What’s the matter with this car?” yelled Rick, his guts churning. Jonathan shook his head, looking desperate, his face white under the sweat and the dust.

“I don’t know!” His eyes widened, and he stole a bemused, almost angry glance at the American. “How the hell would I know, anyway? This car isn’t mine!”

Rick rolled his eyes. They were doomed.

The Lincoln was now half a mile behind them, and to their horrified surprise, the motor gave a sputter and the car started to slow down.

Two voices rose in the same time.

“Step on the gas, Jon!”

“Do _something_, goddammit!”

Jonathan fumbled with the gearbox and the cords sticking out from under the glove compartment, but it didn’t seem to stop the car from slowing down. Looking at a complete loss, he looked up to the skies, his face ashen, his jaw clenched. “Our Lady of the Blessed Acceleration, don’t fail me now…2”

Rick fought back a fit of nervous laughter that threatened to burst out. He’d have to remember that one.

Either Jonathan’s bizarre prayer was heard or one of his attempts was successful. The engine started up again and the car picked up speed. Rick released the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

But it was still a little bit early for rejoicing, it seemed. The Lincoln was now less than a quarter of a mile behind them and gaining more ground.

The Nile divided into two branches where they crossed it, so fast that the great river whooshed past them in the blink of an eye, at over sixty miles an hour. Now the bases of the three pyramids were visible, and the gigantic statue of the Sphinx stood seemingly right in front of them. The road was perfectly straight for two miles, and they were the only two cars, except for a big truck they could see a couple of hundred yards away behind the Lincoln.

“Boy, are we in trouble,” he heard Ferguson mutter behind him.

_We’re in _big_ trouble_, his mind echoed as two Oddballs leaned out the windows, and pointed their guns at them.

“GET DOWN!” Rick shouted, as one, then two gunshots cracked through the roar of the engine. The three of them sank at once in their respective seats, Jonathan just peering from over the wheel.

“Maniacs!” he yelled, making Rick jump a little and look at him bemusedly. “Bloody bunch of completely cracked lunatics!”

His face looked halfway between equally intense terror and fury, and it seemed that the second had taken over the first. Rick actually grinned in spite of the gunshots.

However, this feeling was short-lived. As they arrived at a fork in the road, the first camels, horses and tents of an archaeological party drawing into view, another shot cracked through the air, and the car gave a great swerve. Jonathan shouted something that made Rick himself wince. Evy would have undoubtedly either fainted right away had she heard that or, more likely, bitten his head off.

The car left the road, and the three men clung onto whatever they could to avoid being thrown out.

“Think they’ve hit a tyre!” cried Ferguson, looking down over the door to his left.

“Ya _think_!?” retorted Rick as he turned briefly to him. “Now what?” he asked Jonathan, who struggled hard to keep the wheel from jerking violently.

“The car, it’s – I can’t – HANG ON!!” he shouted suddenly, his eyes wide with terror. Rick took one look ahead, and his heart seemed to stop beating for a second. The car had been zigzagging among the tents and was now heading at top speed toward an overhang that looked about six feet high.

No, not heading. They were already on it. Rick dived in his seat.

There was an eerie second during which the car seemed to fly in absolute silence and grace. Then, as all good things eventually come to an end, there was a mighty crashing noise and what felt like a violent earthquake to the occupants in the car, followed by various metallic sounds indicating that the brave, finally beaten car was falling apart. Finally, a high cloud of thick dust enveloped everything in brownish yellow silence.

Rick slowly opened one wary eye, then, as nothing happened, opened the other. He was still curled up in his seat, a bit bruised, sure, but alive. Just as slowly, he sat up, grasping the door of the car for support. Dust was everywhere, and he couldn’t see a damn thing. “Everyone all right?” he croaked, shaking sand off his hair.

“‘M right ‘ere,” mumbled a shaky voice behind him, and a hand grasped the back of his seat. “Jesus bloody Christ, what a ride… Can’t believe I survived Cambrai3 for this…”

So Ferguson was okay. Good.

“Jonathan?”

No reply.

“Jonathan, are you here?”

The dust was settling, and as the cloud dispersed, Rick could see that Jonathan was still sitting beside him, staring right in front of him with wide eyes, his back straight, stiff as a board. The wheel was still clutched in his hands, except that it was no longer attached to the car.

The picture would have been hilarious in other circumstances.

“Hey, Jonathan,” said Rick, somewhat concerned, “you okay?”

Still no reply. His brother-in-law looked like somebody struck by lightning, except that he was covered in dust and sand, not roasted on the spot. Puzzled, Rick reached out to poke his shoulder. “Hey, time to wake up n—_whoa!_” Jonathan had jumped a foot in the air, as if Rick’s hand had sent electricity through his body. He blinked once, very slowly, then turned blue eyes that had recovered most of their usual character to his brother-in-law.

“Don’t do that.”

_Oh, yeah_. That shoulder still gave him grief sometimes4. “Sorry,” said Rick with a grin, happier than he’d thought he’d be to have him back. “You almost had me worried for a minute. You sure you’re not hurt at all?”

“No, I’m fine. Just a little bit shaken, I guess. Tommy?”

“I’m all right, Jon,” answered Ferguson’s still shaken voice. “Just remind me not to get in a car when you’re driving next time, mate.”

“No problem.”

They scrambled out of the car, Rick kicking the mangled door open. It fell on the ground with a grim-sounding thud. “Jonathan, who was the owner of that car?”

“A very unfortunate person,” deadpanned Jonathan, leaning against the radiator grill, his knees wobbling. Rick rolled his eyes.

“Well, we’ll soon be far more ‘unfortunate’ if we don’t scram _right now_!” Peeking over the overhang, he saw that the Gang had left the Lincoln and was now searching for them among the tents. “We gotta get out of here.”

Jonathan didn’t move. He was staring at a tent a few feet away with a glint in his eyes. “I say, why don’t we just put on some of their large robes and wait till these guys are gone? No need for ugly confrontations, is there?”

Rick thought about it, rejected the idea, then looked over the promontory again.

Okay, so maybe they really had no other choice after all.

But as he turned from the cliff to the beaten, dusty car, he heard a quiet voice say, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Jon.”

Rick turned. What he saw made his heart leap in his throat. Ferguson was standing near the car, a sorrowful expression on his face, and a gun in his hand, aimed directly at Jonathan.

To say Rick was shocked was a little far from the truth. In fact, he couldn’t have said what he felt at that point. Shocked, yes, stunned, probably, furious, definitely – most likely a combination of the three, plus a few other feelings he didn’t bother to break down. For one second, he was tempted to be furious at Jonathan’s credulity and misguided trust… But his anger abated when he took one look at his brother-in-law’s face. Rick felt a nasty pang in the guts at his expression. It was pretty understated for a betrayal of this magnitude: just open-mouthed shock and the promise of a gut-wrenching pain when it settled.

Neither Englishman moved, and this silent stillness seemed to root Rick to the spot as well. His guts were screaming for him to run, and he could have, if he had wanted. But coming back to Evelyn to tell her that her brother had been taken by weirdos in black suits and hats after being backstabbed by a friend? Better face whatever was in store for them.

The Oddball gang caught up with them, the six guys in suits walking as silently as shadows. Each footstep lifted a tiny cloud of dust. Before it came down, the men were standing around them, each revolver pointed at them.

“Well, well, well,” said Number One, raising an eyebrow at the scene. “After all the trouble you have caused us and this entertaining chase, it would eventually seem that you have done all of this for nothing. How unfortunate.”

Rick had very rarely felt a stronger impulse to deck a guy. He suppressed a growl, and cast a deadly glare at the smaller man.

“Oh, you can stare at me, Mr O’Connell, for all the good it will do,” smirked Number One, his voice insufferably smug. “But look at the facts: the odds are against you, and there is no camel to save you this time.” One wave of his hand, and three guns were aimed at his chest from less than four feet away. “If you truly wish to try some heroics, you are welcome to do so. However, know that we have orders to take the two of you alive, if possible.”

Okay. So these guys didn’t give a damn if they died, but it’d be more convenient that they didn’t. Rick was sorely tempted to send them all to hell, but he had one reason not to. He’d never see Evy and Alex again if he did. This particular reason had far more weight than any other excuse to go nuts and do something stupid.

He willed his tense muscles into relaxing slightly, and even allowed himself the luxury of a smile. “I wouldn’t give you this pleasure, you little piece of shit.”

Number One’s eyes narrowed and he scrunched up his nose. “Falling back on verbal violence when physical assault is impossible. This is so crass and so very American that I’m not in the least surprised, Mr O’Connell.”

The screeching noise of big tyres stopping on a rough road came from the trail, a little far behind, and Number One unveiled his eye-teeth in a smile again. “It seems our friends have arrived. Gentlemen, with your permission, we’ll be your escort.”

“So we don’t get lost? Great. Didn’t know we were so popular.” The sensation of one Oddball’s gun being pressed between his shoulder blades silenced Rick for a little while. He took the opportunity to look around.

He and Jonathan were being led to a truck, the very same truck he’d seen earlier behind the Lincoln. The back of the truck opened, and Rick was ordered to get in. As he climbed deftly onto the floor, he looked behind him to see Number One holding Jonathan back for a minute.

“If this is of any comfort to you, Mr Carnahan,” he said in that smug voice of his, “I’ll let you know that Mr Ferguson had very little choice.”

Rick couldn’t see Jonathan’s eyes. He kept his gaze to the ground. Behind the rest of the Gang, a few feet away, Ferguson’s face was downcast as well.

“That means he did have a choice, then, didn’t he.” It hardly sounded like a question at all. Something twisted Rick’s insides at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. In almost a dozen years, he had never heard his brother-in-law sound so thoroughly defeated.

Number One gave a very small smile, one not unlike Imhotep’s when he had advanced toward Rick for the killing blow. “I don’t deny that.”

This time, Rick all but leaped from his spot on the floor of the truck to punch the bastard into the ground.

Jonathan climbed into the truck in turn, and went to sit a few feet away from his brother-in-law, still looking down.

Rick was wondering whether or not he should try to catch his gaze when the Oddball standing near him seized his revolver by the barrel and brought it down.

Everything went black.

* * *

1 باشا (bāša): “sir”, “mister” in Egyptian Arabic.

2Quoth Elwood Blues.

3The Battle of Cambrai (also called the Second Battle of Cambrai), fought between English and German forces in October 1918.

4From the scarab Rick had to cut out of it. And may I state for the record “YEEEESH.”


	7. In The Dark

Evelyn was surprised to find the door of their house locked when she returned from the Museum of Antiquities with Alex. Surprised, but not worried. Jonathan had told her about his appointment earlier in the afternoon with Tom Ferguson’s superior, and as for Rick… Her husband must have got bored and decided to take a stroll down in old Cairo. That would be very much like him. She imagined him roaming the streets, blue eyes alert and light-brown hair ruffled by the slight breeze, and smiled at the mental picture.

“Mum? Where’s Dad gone to?” Alex came in right behind her, carelessly dropping his jacket on a little piece of furniture near the door.

“Hang up your jacket, sweetheart. You know your father, he’s probably going about the old city. Maybe he’s helping your uncle with my birthday present, like you did yesterday.”

Alex stared at her, mouth slightly open. “How d’you know that?”

“I’m your mum, Alex. A mum knows everything.” That, plus the experience of many occasions when Jonathan had asked his brother-in-law or nephew for help at the very last minute. The nature and quality of the presents was often telling. She smiled shrewdly for effect, and her son’s startled expression turned into a suspicious look.

“Then why did you ask me what I’d done when we got back?”

“I didn’t want to spoil your enthusiasm, dear,” she answered easily, still smiling. Alex thought it over for a second, and then nodded quite seriously.

“Right.”

“Good.” She put a hand on the wall for support as she took off her shoes and put on her slippers. “Now, how did you like the Museum?”

“It’s great, obviously,” said Alex with a shrug, following his mother to the kitchen for tea. “They’ve got some really interesting stuff in here, and there’s so many rooms!”

Evelyn put the kettle on and sat at the table near her son, who had put two teacups in front of them. She knew that tone of voice. It always announced a ‘but’.

“But… It’s not quite as interesting as the British Museum. They have all the neat treasures, and the famous mummies too.”

“The Cairo Museum has been asking for recovery of Egyptian treasure for some time now, you know,” said Evelyn softly. “They claim that the British Museum has no right to keep Egypt’s legacy so far from its land of origin. What do you think of that?”

Alex wrinkled his small, round nose. “Guess they have a point… But then, if they got everything back, the people in London couldn’t see anything anymore – the Rosetta Stone, the mummies, all the sculptures…” Evelyn hid a smile. Alex could spend entire days in the Egyptian wing of the British Museum, and its gigantic library. “But then the people here can’t see them either… It’s a little complicated.”

“Most important things are.” Evelyn got up to fetch the kettle, leaving Alex in deep thought. Just as she turned off the gas, she heard the doorbell ring, Alex’s shout of “Must be Dad! I’m getting the door!” and his hurried footsteps thumping down the hall. She shook her head with a smile. Whatever she did or said about the rule of not running inside the house, Alex had _always_ ran to the door when he expected someone, in particular when his father was due home anytime.

However, as she didn’t hear Rick’s voice, she put the kettle away and left the kitchen to join Alex at the door.

“It’s a girl, Mum – she says she wants to talk to you,” came Alex’s voice just as she turned round the corner to the hall.

There was indeed a girl standing in the doorway, a skinny Egyptian girl who appeared to be only a few years older than Alex, looking shy and unsure. Evelyn smiled at her. “Can I help you?”

The girl twiddled her fingers, and put her hand in her pocket. “I think not, but maybe _I_ can help.” She spoke in a fluty, accented voice. “Do you know this man?” And she handed her a leather-bound wallet.

Evelyn took it and frowned. It was unmistakably Jonathan’s. Inside were his identity papers, which had a small photograph and two addresses on it, his London flat and their house in Cairo. When she checked the money, she found its contents intact.

“This wallet belongs to my brother,” she said, mistrust rising. “How did it fall into your hands?”

“Please do not think I stole it!” the girl said earnestly, and Evelyn saw her son’s blue eyes narrow towards her. “But it’s a rather long story. I think the owner of this wallet might be in danger just now.”

Evelyn peered at the girl, trying to decide whether she was speaking the truth or not. At least, she had returned the wallet, and nothing seemed to be missing. This fact spoke in her favour.

What had Jonathan got himself into this time?

“Come in,” she said, still suspicious, stepping aside to let the girl in. Alex stared up at her as she slipped past him like a shadow. “Alex, dear, would you get the tea, please?”

While Alex grumbled his way to the kitchen, Evelyn offered the girl a chair and sat down herself. The child sat there, her hands still twiddling in her lap, stealing glances around her.

“I’m sorry, I forgot my manners. I’m Mrs O’Connell.”

“My name is Satiah,” said the girl, who stopped glancing around to look her in the eye. Evelyn appreciated that. She liked good, frank eye contact in a conversation.

“So,” she said more kindly, as Alex brought the tea tray and came to sit on another chair a few feet away. “How did you find yourself in possession of my brother’s wallet?”

“Well, my father has three camels, one called Djem, and he is my favourite. I often take care of him, and my father had entrusted me today with him to bring some baskets to his cousin in Kerdasa.”

Sensing that Satiah was less afraid than she had been on entering, Evelyn let her talk, interrupting her only to offer her a cup of tea, which she accepted gladly. She sat straight in her chair and spoke very politely.

“Djem is very sweet, but he can be silly sometimes, like a very young camel – he will push a person until they fall, and keep them on the ground for a long time. He only means to play, but this habit of his has already caused us trouble, because people usually do not like camels, even less when they humiliate them.”

A smile begun to pull at the corner of Evelyn’s mouth, in spite of her puzzlement over the whole thing. She could more or less see where this was going.

“Today was no exception: Djem annoyed a man, and I feared that he would be furious, but he was very kind. He even joked about it.” Alex was grinning, the mental picture of his uncle being attacked by a playful camel probably vivid in his mind, and Evelyn gave a warm smile. Her brother could be a scoundrel and a ne’er-do-well, but his heart was still in the right place.

“Later, when I was returning from my father’s cousin, I saw him again from afar. He was talking with two men – one taller, with light-brown hair, and the other broader, with blond hair.”

_Probably Rick and Mr Ferguson_, Evelyn thought, wondering where Satiah’s story was heading.

“While they were talking, a large black car stopped near them, and three men dressed in black suits got out and spoke to them. They looked odd. And after a few seconds, three other men got out of the car. Then they took out weapons – guns – and pointed them at your brother and his friends.”

Evelyn’s blood ran cold. “Who were those men?” she asked anxiously. Alex’s eyes had widened in apprehension, and she was sorely tempted to send him away to his room – she realised that she ought to have done it much earlier, but she had not taken young Satiah and her news seriously at first. It was too late now, Alex had heard both too much and too little. Besides, Evelyn was fully aware that he would do anything to hear anyway. She’d caught him eavesdropping quite a number of times.

Satiah shook her dark head. “I do not know. They were all European, and wore dark suits and hats, a little like this one.” She was pointing at Rick’s trilby, which he had left on the chest of drawers. Evelyn felt a slight pang of anguish, but she fought it down, focusing on the present.

“What happened next?”

“Well, I was afraid, but I thought I ought to do something, because your brother had been kind to me earlier, and that does not happen very often. So I set Djem on the men with a slap on the backside, and your brother and his friends took the opportunity to run.”

Evelyn let out the breath she’d been holding. “That was very kind of you, Satiah, but it doesn’t tell me how Jonathan’s wallet landed up in your pocket. Did he drop it?”

The girl shook her head again. “No. He ran past me to get into a car, and when he saw me he threw me this thing, saying, ‘Please give that to my sister. Tell her we’re in trouble’. He got the car running, the other two got in, and they drove away with the black car behind them. So after returning Djem to my father, I came to your house. The address was on the papers, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find you.”

There was a silence, and Satiah looked down, her face hidden by her hair. Evelyn tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Something must have happened; otherwise Rick and Jonathan would have got home earlier than Alex and her.

Alex… She looked over to her boy, sitting stiffly on his chair. His little mouth was set, and he was frowning.

“When did that happen?” he asked, his young voice so serious. His mother’s heart melted. Then she shook herself mentally, because this was really not the moment.

“About two hours ago, I think,” replied Satiah uncomfortably. Another silence followed, heavier than the previous one. This definitely settled the fact that something had gone wrong. Evelyn could not help glancing at the hall, straining her ears in the wild hope of hearing the door open and her two favourite men walk in, busy with the usual friendly bickering she was accustomed to.

“Thank you, Satiah,” she said in a slightly strained voice, “for both the wallet and the news. We’re very grateful.”

“It is nothing,” Satiah answered, resting her hands on her knees after having kept her fingers intertwined in her lap for a long time. “I am glad I could help, if I did.”

“You did. I thank you for being so thoughtful – many people would have kept the money in that wallet.” Despite Satiah’s seemingly good intentions, Evelyn was still a little bit suspicious. But there was not a trace of guilt in the girl’s response.

“As I said, it is nothing,” she said simply. “There is no need to thank me, I have hardly done anything.”

Evelyn shook her head with a smile, and stood up to walk Satiah to the door. After having closed the door, she waited a few seconds, her hand on the wall; then she slowly walked back to the kitchen, leaned against the doorframe, and looked at Alex who was still sitting on his chair, his eyes down.

He looked up, and their eyes met. Two chips of bright blue in a still childlike round face, with soft, rosy cheeks, baby fat, and blond hair that was getting a little too long for his mother’s liking. He was so beautiful, so sweet, so brave, so bright – the best child in the world, her little boy was.

Two years ago, her heart had shattered in her chest when she had seen him being taken. She’d distinctly felt it break, an overwhelming pang reverberating throughout her body, and the pain had almost caused her to double up. She had barely felt Rick’s embrace at first, her mind in a whirl over three terrible little words. _My baby’s gone_. Her own blood, her very flesh. Eight years, three months and sixteen days of love, joy, wonder, anger, ‘Don’t pick your nose’, playing on the carpet of the living room, afternoon naps, tears, ‘I don’t wanna go to school!’, hugs, kisses, pride, ‘What does that symbol mean, Mum?’…

And now he was sitting there, his eyes silently pleading – no, not pleading. Demanding explanations, answers. Her little boy had toughened up; he was less innocent, more aware of the dangers of this world – and others. He’d had to grow up fast while Evelyn and Rick were out exploring the bowels of pyramids too dangerous for Alex to try his luck inside.

Evelyn did not know how he had reacted to being kidnapped, taken brutally from the people who loved him most, and thrown in a train with strange, scary men in red and a living mummy with otherworldly powers. When she had gone with Imhotep to save her friends, what seemed like a very long time ago now, she had been mortally afraid. Even if she had tried to keep on a brave, undaunted façade for the sake of her dignity, she had never felt more scared in her whole life. At that time, she had been almost certain that Jonathan, O’Connell, the curator and the strange tattooed man had fallen at the hands of Imhotep’s minions, and she had given up on hope. It was only when the motor of the biplane had roared above her that hope had flared up inside her again. Rick O’Connell had not abandoned her.

Yes, for as long as she could remember, Rick had always been the rescuer, her knight without shining armour, and although he had never asked for the part and would have gladly turned it down in other circumstances, it was perfectly fitting. He was her fearless hero with a heart of gold, even with his doubts, his fears, and his grumpy mornings.

She loved him, and if it was her turn to save him from danger, then she was going to do it, no matter her own fears and doubts.

She answered Alex’s serious, inquisitive stare with a smile, a slow, rueful one.

“Mum? Dad’s in serious trouble, isn’t he?”

“It would seem so,” she replied softly, her head still resting against the frame. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get him back.”

Alex nodded, his mother’s own newfound determination reflected in his eyes. “Don’t worry, Mum,” he said with a confidence she wished she had too. “Dad’s tough. He can take care of himself, and keep an eye on Uncle Jon, too.”

She gave a smile, and Alex’s face shone from the pleasure of making his mum smile as he continued, “Though it’d be good if we got them out of there quick, before they’re in more trouble.”

This time, she crossed the room and enveloped her son in a fierce hug, her heart swelling. Her darling boy made her proud ten times a day, as much as he drove her mad, but in those particular circumstances she felt even prouder of him.

This lasted until she felt Alex tap her shoulder. “Mum, lemme go – I can’t breathe –” It was untrue, of course, but Evelyn let go of her son, who sat back and straightened his shirt with a dignified air.

When he looked up at her again, she stood up and said, in a firmer voice, “Get your jacket, Alex. We’re going out.”

She went to pick up her own, and marched down into the hall to put on her shoes again, followed by her son who had positively jumped off his chair. “Where’re we going, Mum? Are we gonna help Dad and Uncle Jon?”

“Yes, as soon as we can. For the moment,” Evelyn said, her voice now perfectly steady as she opened the door and stepped outside, “we’re taking a little trip to the Consulate. It’s the last place your uncle went to, after all.”

_Who knows…_ Maybe they’d be able to get a few answers there.

Alex trotted past her, and slipped his little hand in hers without a word. She clung to it tightly as they walked.

* * *

“Jonathan? Hey, Jonathan, wake up, nap’s over…”

Someone was poking his shoulder, and he hated that. This was the first thing Jonathan was aware of, and his first conscious act was to will it to stop. His body felt like lead, his head like living hell, and there was nothing he wanted more than to slip back into oblivion.

“C’mon, Jonathan, much as I’d like to throw water at ya, I can’t, so you’ll have to wake up by yourself.”

A hand or two were shaking him now. _Would you please be so kind as to bugger off, whoever you are!_ his hazy mind yelled, but this, unsurprisingly, had absolutely no effect.

Despite his efforts to let go of his grasp on reality, he was slowly emerging, growing more conscious of things surrounding him. For starters, it was cold. Not actually very cold, and certainly not freezing, but the contrast was stark in comparison with the heavy heat of the outside. Jonathan found himself shivering in spite of himself._ Great. I’m in one of the hottest countries in the world, and I manage to get myself a cold. Just bloody perfect._

“Hey, buddy, I refuse to let you scare me – now wake up. Please don’t make me slap you, okay? I’d really prefer to leave that to Evy.”

Rick. That low baritone tinged with an unmistakable American drawl could only belong to his brother-in-law. Deciding that perhaps this was worth the effort of opening his eyes, Jonathan proceeded to work on that, all the while trying to gather his fractured memories. What the hell had happened?

When he finally managed to lift his eyelids – they seemed to weigh a metric ton, with a headache in proportion – he could more or less make out Rick’s silhouette, his face a light blur in the dark. He was bent down over him, still gripping him by the shoulders, and Jonathan could see that he was frowning. Looking worried, even.

“Well, never thought I’d think this one day, let alone say it, but it’s good to have you back,” he said, and what was more surprising was that he did seem to mean it. Jonathan’s left shoulder gave a painful twinge, and he winced. Rick automatically let go, although his other hand remained on his other shoulder, the one a scarab hadn’t burrowed its way out of a decade ago. “Dunno what I would’ve told Evy if… Well. Must have been a helluva blow you took, I came round a while ago.”

A blow? Jonathan could remember somebody striking him from behind a few days ago, but it couldn’t be the same occasion now… Besides, he’d been with Tommy when—

_Tommy._

The memory of the previous hours came back to him with such force that it felt like a punch in the stomach. The shock of seeing Tom Ferguson aiming a gun at him, after all these years, after all they’d been through in the previous days, after all the laughs and the memories, had been such that it had left him completely winded, his mind blank, unable to move, unable to think. Absolute terror had sometimes seemed to numb him utterly; he had come to get used to it during the war. This particular sensation, though – or lack thereof – was hardly something he’d felt before.

To be honest, it was the closest thing to what he had felt after reading the letter about the death of his parents. Shocked into total blank.

The world should definitely not be turning so fast. This must have shown on his face, because Rick’s eyes narrowed in his direction. “Hey – you okay?”

“Think I’m going to be sick,” muttered Jonathan, propping himself up on his elbows and turning his head away. Beside the fact that this gave him a good excuse for avoiding Rick looking at him, he _was_ feeling queasy.

“Whoa, easy there. Don’t get sick on me just now, I like this suit.”

Jonathan snorted despite the nausea. If the way Alex reminded people of Rick was unsettling, the opposite was just as true.

As usual, Rick’s actions conveyed more than his words. His hand remained on Jonathan’s shoulder, like an anchor, until the room stopped spinning.

“Better now?”

“Yes, thanks.” Jonathan sat up slowly and gazed around. The cell they were in didn’t look like the average literature dungeon cell with damp stone walls, stone floor, straw mattress thrown in the corner, and rats to gnaw at your feet. The walls were made of whitewashed stone, the floor was quite dry, and even with the massive, daunting door, it looked more like somebody’s cellar than a prison for two people. “What on earth is this?”

“Our brand new apartment for the while, it seems,” deadpanned Rick, following his gaze across the room. Jonathan shook his head, a slight smirk lifting a corner of his mouth in spite of himself.

“Why can’t you bloody Americans say ‘flat’, like everybody else?”

“No way I’m letting myself get colonised,” retorted Rick, his grin flashing white teeth in the dark. There was a short silence, made a little more comfortable by the return of their usual banter. It was familiar, at least, and for a second Jonathan half-expected Evy to tut-tut at them and tell them to behave.

But that was simply not happening. Evy must now be home, with Alex, probably wondering what was taking Rick and him so long, while the two of them were kept in an empty cellar which didn’t even have wine in it. On second thought, though, Jonathan did not really feel like drinking just now. Blood was throbbing against his ears, and he had a feeling the nausea had just gone for tea and might return anytime. Not to mention that his whole head felt rather like a gong.

“Bloody hell. When we get out of here, I’m not drinking for a week. Not risking a hangover after this.”

Rick stared at him, one light-brown eyebrow raised. “Never thought I’d live long enough to hear that from you.” Jonathan gingerly rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes with a slight smile of his own.

“Things do change, my good son.”

“Certainly looks so. If they didn’t, Evy or Alex would have been kidnapped, stuff would have happened with a random object linked with some Ancient Egyptian legend, Ardeth would’ve turned up, and we’d be on our way to save them.”

“That’s summing it up nicely.” Something crossed Jonathan’s mind. “Ardeth did turn up, by the way. We bumped into him yesterday, at the bazaar. Didn’t Alex tell you?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah, he did.” Rick frowned, then nodded with a grin. “He told me that he’d scared the hell out of you.”

“Slander and calumny. I was only a tad startled. So, Ardeth turning up, the diamond stolen… Two down on your list already. If you’re not careful, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to save the world again, my dear brother-in-law.”

“Yeah,” Rick said with a chuckle that shook his broad shoulders slightly, “right.” He looked down for a second, then fixed his eyes on Jonathan curiously. “You know, when I said I never thought that someday I’d say it’s good to have you back, I meant it. And don’t make me repeat that.”

Jonathan gave a tired blink.

“Rick, if you’re going to get sentimental on me, only talk in long, complicated sentences I have absolutely no hope of understanding right now.”

The American let out something that sounded halfway between a snort and an annoyed sigh. “Wiseass.”

There was a silence, then he turned his head to Jonathan and blurted out, “I’m glad you’re not dead, you idiot. You’re family.”

This surprised Jonathan. A lot. Not only what Rick had just said, but also the very fact that he’d actually said it.

It reminded him of something, a conversation with Evy a few months after Ahm Shere. He’d caught a pretty nasty bug at the time that had forced him to stay in bed for a few days, and Evy had been lovely with him, putting him up in his old room at the house and bringing him steaming toddies. So when she’d pestered him about personal stuff, he’d finally answered for once. But as his sister had a knack for prodding where she ought not to prod, especially at barriers a fellow had painstakingly erected around complicated matters, he had tried to keep it as simple as possible.

“_Now that you’re cornered, maybe you’ll tell me why you’ve been looking a bit off-colour recently_.”

“_Mmh. May I remind you why I’m stuck here instead of –_”

“_Don’t take me for an idiot, Jonathan, I wasn’t talking about your __flu__. You’ve been looking a bit odd, at times, since we returned from Egypt_.” She had frowned. He had repressed a laugh. She always wrinkled her nose when she frowned.

“_Is that a sister’s prerogative to __persecute_ _a__ poor chap __on his sickbed__?_” His attempt at a joke failed miserably. Being sick tended to make his standards drop. Evy had shaken her head, completely hermetic to the charms of alliterations, looking almost as determined as she did when about to decipher some complex hieroglyphs.

“_No, but it’s a sister’s prerogative to worry about her brother sometimes. So, what’s bugging you?_”

“‘_Bugging’? This is hardly a choice of words I’d expect from my __sweet,__ innocent baby sister_.”

“_Knock it off, Jonathan._” That had made him raise his eyebrows. It was rather refreshing, and sounded really funny coming from her. “_Is it something I’ve said or done? Or something Rick –_”

“_No, Rick’s got nothing to do with it. __F__or heaven’s sake__, Evy, you’ve no idea how stubborn you can be –_” He’d stopped suddenly to sneeze, and then blinked, rubbed his nose, and looked at his sister to finish his sentence, “_– and how infuriating it can be __sometimes__. Well, it’s nothing, really… __O__nly_ _t__hat the three of you do have a knack for making me feel like the fourth side of the pyramid, sometimes_.”

Evy had stared at him for a few seconds. The surprised look in her bright eyes softened. He could still remember the smile that had dawned on her face as she said, “_Jonathan… There _are_ four sides to a pyramid. __I__t simply could not stand __without_ _a__ fourth_.”

He’d just stared at her without a word, rather poleaxed.

Just like he was staring now at his brother-in-law. However, he knew better than to press the matter further.

“Well, thanks, old boy – I’m awfully glad they didn’t do your head in, too,” he said rather uncertainly, risking a small lopsided grin.

And this settled the subject. The two men went back to staring at the door opposite.

Then Rick let out a small laugh. “This just ain’t right. I’m supposed to be the rescue party, not the rescued.”

It sounded so absurd – and Rick was probably quite aware of it – that Jonathan couldn’t help a little sarcasm.

“Who says we’ll need to be rescued? Maybe the creep in chief will simply open the door, tell us ‘Oh, it’s all been a big mistake, I’m terribly sorry’ and kick us out.”

“As I said before,” said the American in a deliberately drawling tone of voice, “yeah. _Right_.”

His brother-in-law chuckled. Then, without a warning, Rick got up and walked a few steps towards the door.

“You know,” he said, looking thoughtful, “once I read some freaky book about a guy who wakes up one morning, and the police come to his house, and he never finds out why…”

“Kafka? _The Trial_?”

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s the one. He constantly asks why they’ve arrested him, what he’s done wrong, but nobody will give him a straight answer. The officers are always very polite and everything, but in the end they stab him to death, like, you know, an execution, and he never knows why he’s dead.”

“I’ve read that one, too.” Jonathan shifted uncomfortably. “Not the nicest bedtime story.” _Trust Rick to lighten the atmosphere_. Now he was getting just a little afraid that their fate might be similar to that poor fellow from Kafka’s book.

_Thanks for nothing, old boy._

“What’s that you’ve said, just now?” asked Rick, apparently not noticing Jonathan’s growing unease. “About those guys saying ‘It’s all a big mistake, now get out of here’?”

“What about it?”

“Well, either it’s true, or they’ve finally decided what to do with us. I hear footsteps coming.”

Jonathan stood up as well, and leaned against the wall, holding his breath, while Rick stood near the door, cracking his knuckles.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Gettin’ ready. If there’re not too many of them, we can get away by knocking a guy out and using him as a shield. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

“Are you utterly and completely mad?! They’ve got guns, for cripes’ sake! _We_, on the other hand, do _not_!”

“Yeah?” Rick gave a shrug, not moving from his spot. “Not really a problem.” So very Rick – an explosive mix of sheer heroism and sheer imbecility.

“Rick, you can’t just –”

They heard the sound of a key turning in its lock, and the door opened – just a tiny bit. Just enough to let in the barrel of a long gun. Which was pointed right towards Rick’s stomach.

Jonathan’s blood turned to ice. _I was right. Of course I was right. __Bloody h__ell, why does nobody ever listen to me when I’m right!?_

Fury burning in his bright blue eyes, Rick slowly took a few steps back. The door opened, and the man behind the gun walked in, followed by… Tommy.

Something rose from the pit of Jonathan’s stomach, quite distinct from the all-encompassing numbing shock from earlier. It felt like pins and needles increased tenfold, making his hands itch and clench into fists. His head was spinning again, but for an entirely different reason.

Tommy went over to him, avoiding looking at Rick, and stood in front of him, his face pale and sad. “Jon… I’m – I’m so sorry, mate, I’m really sorry… But I didn’t have a choice. I thought –”

“Obviously you thought wrong,” muttered Jonathan through his teeth. For once, only a small part of him was shaking with mind-freezing panic. The rest was entirely taken up by a hot fury such as he’d never felt before. It was a wholly novel sensation.

Tommy shook his head, and took another step forward, his voice pleading. “Please, Jon, you don’t understand… You must let me explain –”

_Wham!_

Before Jonathan could realise what he’d done, Tommy was sprawled on the ground, dazed, his hair all over the place, and Rick stared at him in a way that was all at once disbelieving, impressed, and amused. Then he felt the cold metal of a gun’s barrel pressed against his temple.

Terror immediately supplanted anger. He squeezed his eyes shut with a grimace, and wished that it’d be quick.

If anything, it was indeed quick. One split second later, he heard someone shout “No!” and the barrel was removed from his head. Feeling that it should be safe now to open his eyes, Jonathan did just that, and saw with a certain amazement that Tommy had sprung back on his feet in a flash and pinned the gunman’s arm to the wall.

There was something he must have missed. Gingerly massaging his knuckles, he stared at Tommy who released the man, looking both shaken and angry.

“Never do that again!” Tommy yelled at the underling in black, who didn’t so much as flinch.

“Sir, he’d just –”

“Never mind that! No harm comes to them, hear me? You know your orders!”

The man looked annoyed. “I just thought that –”

Tommy cut him off with an angry gesture. “Do you really think you’re getting paid for thinking?”

Now the black-clad fellow looked beyond annoyance. In fact, as Rick would undoubtedly have put it, he just looked pissed.

But Tommy didn’t appear to care much. He turned to Jonathan, seemed about to say something, then looked away, rubbing his jaw. The underling, still holding his gun, walked to the door and opened it, a clear signal that they should be going.

Before Tom crossed the threshold, he raised his eyes for a moment to stare at his former friend straight in the face.

“Jon…”

Jonathan just glared back. His eyes were burning and his jaw was clenched so tight that it hurt. Tommy held his gaze for a few seconds, then shook his head and turned away, closing the door behind him without another word.

The silence that followed was thicker than lead. Every muscle in Jonathan’s face relaxed as one, and he looked down, his hands in his pockets and his heart in his throat.

Then there was the sound of footfall, and he found himself looking down no longer at the floor, but at a pair of thick dark brown shoes.

“Well. Uh. That was impressive,” came Rick’s low voice, tinged with something unusual and complicated that he failed to decipher, “for a Brit. Especially a Brit like you. Didn’t think you went in for the old fisticuffs.”

Jonathan didn’t trust himself to speak. He kept his face downcast and didn’t take the bait. Rick’s shoes moved to his left, and his baritone came again, quieter and somewhat warmer than usual. “I mean, there’s some potential in your right, but it could get much better. C’mon, look – hey, look up – yeah, that’s it. I’ll show ya.”

Intrigued in spite of himself, Jonathan lifted his gaze from Rick’s shoes to his face. The latter had raised one fist and now proceeded to demonstrate the mechanics of a haymaker. “Close your fist tightly, thumb over knuckles, otherwise you’re gonna break a couple of fingers and I don’t think you want that. Right,” he said as Jonathan looked at him curiously, “now you got this circular movement from behind to your left. Use your shoulders and punch from your hip. And ya gotta reach really far behind – your hit’ll be more powerful. In the end you aim for a point behind the guy a little bit, and, uh… pray to God you don’t miss.”

Rick finished on a slight grin, and Jonathan stared at him, a small smile pulling reluctantly at one corner of his mouth. It was not necessarily in the middle of a fight that he definitely did _not_ regret having Rick O’Connell as a brother-in-law. The man was truly a decent bloke. That was growing rarer and rarer these days.

“Thanks, Rick. I’ll keep this lesson in mind. It was very, er. Helpful.”

“‘Helpful’?” A light-brown eyebrow shot up.

Jonathan put on his best innocent face. “Yes… ‘helpful’.” There was a rather long silence, then he looked down with a wince. “It _hurts_, though.”

Rick’s face darkened. “Dunno what to say, buddy. What that bastard did –”

“No, I mean my hand. Hurts like hell.”

“Oh.” An awkward pause. “That’s just ‘cause you’re not used to it. It’ll wear off in time.”

“I suppose so.” Rick was right, of course. But Jonathan had a hunch that it would take a little while to wear off. Whatever he was alluding to.

The two men sat on the ground again, backs against the wall, and silence fell for a long while. Despite the grim situation, the atmosphere was relatively comfortable, and Jonathan had to admit that Rick’s silent presence had a great deal to do with it. He wasn’t sure how, or even why, but his little demonstration had helped lift his spirits somewhat, absurd as it might sound. As he stared at the door opposite, he realised that he was glad not to be alone in this bloody mess. Whatever was in store for them, they would face it together, and he clung to this thought, deliberately ignoring the dull apprehension that gnawed at his stomach.

All the while trying not to think about Evy’s reaction when she found out what had happened.

* * *

“You don’t understand – I absolutely must see someone!”

The guard shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but there’s nothing I can do – there’s nobody ‘ere but me and the caretaker. Everybody’s gone earlier, it’s Saturday, y’know.”

Evelyn bit her lip. “Look, my husband and my brother have disappeared, and I have reasons to think they might be in danger as we speak. Is there really nothing you can do?”

“No, Ma’am, ‘s much as I’d like to,” sighed the old guard. “I’ve not seen your brother. I take my shift at half past seven anyway. Who was he s’pposed to see today?”

“A man called Hamilton,” Alex cut in with his firm little voice. “And he’s friends with Tom Ferguson, he works here.”

“Hamilton and Ferguson, you said? Sorry, lad, I’ve never heard of ‘em.”

Evelyn opened her mouth, floored, but she pulled herself together swiftly. “Are you quite sure? Thomas Ferguson, broad-shouldered, average height, with blond hair and brown eyes?”

The guard thought for a few seconds, then his eyes widened slightly in recognition. “Oh, I think I see – the day guard, Harry, he told me about a couple of odd things going on ‘ere lately. Helped move in boxes an’ stuff into empty offices, and there was some fellers he didn’ know walkin’ down the corridors. Your Ferguson mus’ be one o’them.”

Odd things going on… Unused offices suddenly filled with boxes… Evelyn just didn’t understand. Who could be influential enough to take all these pains and use the British Consulate that way, just for what appeared to be a front?

“That’s all I know, Mrs O’Connell, ‘m sorry I can’ tell you more about it,” said the old guard sadly. “All I can suggest, if you’ll allow me, is that you get back home with the young lad ‘ere, and wait ‘til morning. At least you won’t be in the dark anymore.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn thoughtfully, more to herself than to the guard, “I suppose I won’t.” She gave him a goodbye smile, and walked off, holding Alex by the hand.

Alex, who still trotted beside her, looked flabbergasted. “C’mon, Mum, we can’t just go home like that! What about Dad and Uncle Jon? There must be something we –”

“Indeed, there must, and I’m sure there is,” replied his mother firmly. “But we’re going home first. _You_’ve got to get some sleep.”

“‘You’? What d’you mean? What about you?”

“I’m going over to Dr Hakim’s. Something tells me that Rick, Jonathan and Mr Ferguson being taken three days after the theft of the Diamond of Ahm Shere is not quite innocent.”

Alex stopped, and stared at his mother, his mouth slightly open. “Are you sure?”

“No.” Evelyn gazed into space, her anxiousness taking over for a short while. “But I do think it’s worth asking.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Alex nodded, then pouted. “Mum, I’m not sleepy at all. It’s not fair to send me to bed like a kid.”

“Alex, much as I resent colloquialisms, you _are_ a ‘kid’. And I am your mum.”

“Mum, please, I’m worried too! Come on! I can’t just stay in bed while my dad’s been kidnapped by bad guys! D’you think he would?”

Despite everything her motherly instinct was screaming at her, Evelyn had to admit that her boy had a point. His father would never, ever stay put had a member of the family been taken. She just knew that, if Rick had not been the one in danger, he would have done anything to save them. Just what she had vowed to do, and Alex seemed to take after his father in _many_ ways.

As Alex stared at her intently, Evelyn sighed. This was not going to be easy.


	8. One Long Night

“If I knew where we’re being forced to stay, I’d complain to whoever’s in charge. The service leaves much to be desired if you ask me, and I’ve never drunk such a godawful tea.”

“That might be ‘cause this is supposed to be coffee, Jonathan.”

A pause, long enough for Rick to lift his eyes from his cup and raise an eyebrow at his brother-in-law. The Englishman was squinting at his cup the way someone would at a particularly complex mathematical equation. When he finally looked back at Rick, there was something in his slightly slanted eyes that could be interpreted as a wry smile.

“That explains it, then.”

Rick downed the last remnants of his cup in one gulp, refraining from shaking his head. Those Brits. Never happy without their sacrosanct cup of tea after a meal. And before. And every time someone knocked on the door. For eleven years now he had been living in England, but no matter how hard he’d tried this weird habit, if only for Evy’s sake, he could never, ever get used to it.

Unfortunately, for him English coffee was simply a disgrace to the name.

Still, he and Jonathan were pretty lucky that whoever was keeping them locked up had thought to send them food and drink. Although Rick really had to admit that he had seldom tasted anything as insipid as this stuff. Even back in England.

At least the smell of the now-empty plates was gone, as one anonymous goon had come a few minutes earlier to take the empty trays away, leaving only the yet-unfinished ‘coffee’ cups.

A full stomach was always good news. Between leaving the orphanage and meeting Evelyn, Rick had had a taste of a couple of prisons. Very few wardens had ever sent him a tray of basic but decent food. Usually, if they ever did, the food looked as if it had been there for over a week. Or more.

“You shouldn’t complain about the food, really,” he called over his shoulder to Jonathan, all the while making himself as comfortable as possible on the floor and crossing his arms behind his head. “Be happy they bothered to send us some. Even if it was lousy.”

The noise he got as an answer was halfway between a sniff and a snort, but he didn’t hear Jonathan change position. His brother-in-law had not moved from his spot against the wall since Ferguson left, and even if he seemed to be reverting back to his old self, there was still something on his face that bothered Rick. It was like a remnant of the haunted sort of look he’d gotten when Ferguson had pointed that gun at him in the afternoon, and Rick could not help the peculiar feeling that this was completely out-of-place. As he’d said to Evy, he and Jonathan weren’t the best of friends, but, as he’d said to Jonathan, the man _was_ family. When all the family you’d ever had only had five people altogether, including yourself, you did everything to keep it as is. Besides, for all his faults, his brother-in-law was a pretty decent guy. Anyway, nobody should ever get that look on their face. Nobody. Ever.

Although Rick was never good at voicing concern or suchlike to anyone that wasn’t Evy, he had tried, earlier, to ask Jonathan if he was okay.

“Oh, don’t worry, Rick, old chap,” had come the reply. “I’ll be fine. I’m an Englishman, remember – Ye Olde stiff upper lip and everything.”

And that had been about all Rick had to make do with.

Every now and then, it occurred to him that while Jonathan talked a lot, there was also a lot he didn’t talk about. Not without a bottle of good single malt on hand, anyway.

Jonathan did not, for once, seem keen on making conversation, and Rick was left to his own grim thoughts. This could either be taken as a good thing – no risk of boredom – or a bad thing – as if the situation wasn’t glum enough – but anyway, he had much to think about. Like who the hell were those men and why they had taken the two of them.

He didn’t know exactly what had been Ferguson’s part in this, but it sure looked like he was in it up to his neck. In, but not at the head of things. Even if Rick had seen him give orders earlier to the gunman, the chief Oddball from the black Lincoln had not spoken about him the way an inferior in rank would.

One thing was certain, though. If Ferguson belonged to the real British Antique Research Department, then Rick O’Connell was a six year old ballerina girl.

Then again, according to what Evy had told him, Ferguson had been knocked out cold in the diamond’s room just as Jonathan had.

Rick shook his head. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. Even if he could not explain it, he had a feeling that this damn diamond was at the heart of things. Everything bad that had happened since they arrived in Egypt had come right after the robbery at the Museum.

If the diamond heist and their kidnapping were linked, as Rick was starting to believe, then there had to be some kind of organisation behind both deeds that used the British Antique Research Department as a front. He didn’t know who was behind this bunch of spooky weirdos in black, but it was not Ferguson. The American’s gut instincts had very rarely deceived him, and he had a hunch that the means displayed meant a great influence, which Ferguson didn’t seem to have. A great influence always meant great power. And Rick had long ago noticed that the more power some people had, the more power they sought.

According to what he knew about the guy, and what he had seen of him so far, Ferguson did not seem to be this kind of man.

Rick had been fairly surprised at Ferguson’s reaction when that Oddball had cocked his gun against Jonathan’s temple. It had all happened very quickly: the punch, his own amused blink, Ferguson’s bewildered look from the ground… Then there had been something that had felt like an icy hand grasping at his guts as the black-clad man’s gun flew to Jonathan’s head. The look on the gunman’s face had sent a chill – a slight one, but a chill all the same – up Rick’s spine. He knew the kind, having met a few like this in the Legion. This was a man who was just doing his job. His gesture had been a hundred percent professional. And Rick knew for certain that he would have pulled the trigger in perfect cold blood had Ferguson not leapt on his feet and pushed the gun away in a heartbeat.

Either Ferguson had received very strict orders, or else there was still a part of the lousy traitor that cared about his old buddy’s – or rather ‘mate’s’, as those damn Brits ever seemed to make a point of doing nothing like everybody else, least of all talk – life.

Part of Rick – a pretty small one, his cautious, often battered sense of optimism – preferred the second option. But if you asked the realistic part of his brain and what logical rationality had rubbed off on him from Evy, both were possible, the first surely more so than the last.

Rick blinked at the blank ceiling, wondering what to make of all of this. One thing was for sure: he wouldn’t want for all the world to be in his brother-in-law’s shoes right now. He’d been pretty pissed each time Beni had let him down, even if in the long run he had grown rather used to it. At least the little scumbag had never played the ‘best of buddies’ act convincingly. Sure, they’d had a few good times in the Legion, and a few good scares too, but there was never anything personal involved. Rick had known the only thing he could count on the guy for was an eventual stab in the back, and it had worked out. More or less.

Funny how things turned out eventually. From the first second he had seen Ferguson, Rick had had a feeling that the two Brits weren’t friends for nothing. They were as different as can be physically, but they did share not only a whole bunch of memories and the same nationality but also the same sense of humour, a certain ironical take on life… And a fondness for that undrinkable British beverage that could only be explained by blood legacy. That, plus Scotch.

Well, with everything they had in common, Rick would have thought that whatever friendship united them would last. At least a bit.

_Guess I was wrong._

Rick shifted slightly on the floor. Beside the fact that he didn’t like silence all that much, he was slowly but surely getting bored. And tired.

“Hey, Jonathan?” he called over his shoulder. As nobody answered, he said with a crooked grin, “Lazy bum. Sleepin’ already, are ya?”

He got no reply, and propped himself up on his elbows to see if everything was all right behind him. It appeared so, he noted with a smile that was not entirely a smirk: Jonathan was sound asleep, still sitting with his back against the wall, his chin resting on his chest. He was even snoring slightly.

“Right,” Rick mumbled with a small laugh. “Thanks for the company.” Unsurprisingly, his brother-in-law didn’t bother to reply. The American put his head back on the floor, and went back to staring at the ceiling. “Well, even if you’re out of it, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say we really are screwed.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Rick gave a jump, quite a feat considering the fact that he was lying flat with his back on the ground. There was a reason for that. The voice he’d just heard had absolutely nothing to do with his brother-in-law’s. He didn’t know where it had come from, or who.

Only that it belonged to a woman.

“Who are you? And where the hell are you?” asked Rick, sitting straight and alert, now fully awake. He peered across the room, his eyes squinting and his brows furrowing. Nothing. It still appeared that he and Jonathan were the only occupants of the cell.

He used to believe in ghosts when he was a kid, because the older kids at the orphanage always liked to scare the younger ones with stories. Then he’d grown out of it. Sure, there were things in this world nobody could explain yet, but dead people generally stayed dead.

Of course, his first encounter with the actual undead had made him revise his judgement. After his first trip to Hamunaptra, having seen what he’d seen, he had kept his eye out for anything – _anything_ – unlike Evelyn, who used to reject every irrational theory outright.

Rick’s opinion about strange phenomenons had been last updated at Ahm Shere. Walking, talking mummies existed, as did green little murder pygmies, and Jonathan’s common sense – though this last one was occasional.

Ghosts do not. That he knew of.

“There’s no need to be rude, sir,” came the voice. It had a British – make that English – accent, and there was something sad in it, like a sigh. What on Earth could an English ghost possibly be doing down there? “I’m just an accidental neighbour. I’m talking to you through this little air vent down the wall. Can you see it?”

_So much for ghosts_. Rick looked past the sleeping Jonathan, spotted the vent, and walked over to it. “Yeah, got it.”

The vent was so small that he was not surprised he had missed it at first. Rather happy to see that rationality was kicking back in – and trying not to think about Evy’s triumphant ‘I told you so!’ if she’d been there –, Rick sat in front of it, trying to make out something on the other side of the wall. His attempt failed. The vent was too tiny, and the room was definitely too dark. “Who are you, and what are you doin’ here?”

“Is _this_ your way of introducing yourself?” The woman’s words were stuck-up, but her tone wasn’t. Evy had something like that in her voice on early mornings. “Well, I suppose I should introduce myself first. I’m Elizabeth Ferguson, and –”

“Ferguson? Wait –” Rick frowned, every internal alarm bell blaring in his mind. “Is Tom Ferguson your husband or brother or –”

“Tom is my husband, yes. Have you seen him recently? Is he all right?”

Mrs Ferguson’s voice had shifted from tired to laced with fear and concern. But you could easily fake fear and concern. In fact, Rick was torn between lashing out at the woman and asking her again what the hell she was doing there while her husband was the one that got the two of them in a cell for no apparent reason, and sympathising with her for having married such a jerk. He picked neither and forced his voice into an even tone.

“Oh, he’s fine, all right… and yes, I saw him recently. Look, this may come as a shock to you, but –”

“How do you know him, anyway? I certainly don’t know _you_.” Mistrust was suddenly plain in Mrs Ferguson’s low voice. Pushing back his impatience, Rick rolled his eyes and bent closer to the air vent.

“Of course you don’t know me – I didn’t know your husband a week ago. But my brother-in-law did. Now may I –”

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

Now the woman was really ticking him off. Wishing she would let him finish his sentence this time, Rick snapped, “Right. I’m O’Connell – Rick O’Connell. Got locked up in here by men with guns for a couple of hours, and your husband’s the reason why I’m here and not at home with my wife and kid. How’s that for an answer?”

There was silence on the other side of the wall, long enough to make Rick feel a little bad about his somewhat harsh reply. If what this woman had been saying so far was the truth, she apparently did not wish to be there any more than he did, and he’d just gone and thrown this piece of news right into her face. After all, she couldn’t really help it if her husband was a two-faced bastard.

Ah, well. Evelyn teased him on his somewhat rough manners often enough.

“Look, Mrs Ferguson, I didn’t mean to go off on you. I’m just pretty angry. I mean, your husband’s a friend of my brother-in-law’s. The two of them went to the Museum and they were in the Diamond of Ahm Shere’s room when it was stolen –”

“Hold – hold on, Mr O’Connell,” cut in Mrs Ferguson, in a rather subdued voice. “Do you mean the Cairo Museum? And what is this diamond you’re referring to?”

Once more, Rick was sorely tempted not to trust her. She could very well be faking ignorance to draw information from him. Then again, she was the only person he could talk to at this very moment. He knew better than to lose time trying to wake Jonathan. The man could sleep like a log at the best of times and looked like death warmed over anyway.

“There was this big diamond from Ancient Egypt in the Museum of Antiquities, and Jonathan and your Tom got knocked on the head while it was stolen –”

“I take it that this Jonathan is your brother-in-law?”

Rick rolled his eyes. “Do you ever let people finish their sentences? Yes, he’s my wife’s brother.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr O’Connell,” came Mrs Ferguson’s sheepish voice. “I’m not usually so rude, I swear, but I do tend to be rather short when I’m afraid.” A pause. “And I must confess I’m somewhat afraid right now.”

All right. So maybe she was being sincere after all.

“I used to know a Jonathan, you know,” she continued, and if Rick’s ears weren’t deceiving him yet, she was smiling slightly. “When I was in university. We were close friends at the time, he, Tom, and I; we used to meet in a little café in Oxford for chats and drinks… I have very fond memories of those times. What’s your brother-in-law’s surname?”

“Carnahan.” He heard a tired, but happy little laugh. “Is he the Jonathan you were talking about?”

“Yes, the very same. How is he now?”

“Well, he’s…” Rick glanced behind him. “He’s asleep.”

There was silence on the other side of the wall, followed by a slight shuffle as Mrs Ferguson came closer to the air vent. “Jonathan Carnahan is here? In the same room as you?”

“Yep.”

“And he’s… asleep?”

“That’s right.”

For a few seconds Mrs Ferguson was silent, then she asked, sounding utterly confused, “Would you be so kind as to tell me exactly what happened to land the both of you in here?”

Rick pondered answering her for a little while. He looked into the space in front of him, then at the sleeping form of his brother-in-law, then at the air vent. Finally, he scratched the back of his neck and edged closer to the vent. “Okay. I’ll try to make it short, but I have a feeling it’s gonna take a while. Just warn me when you start to fall asleep.”

* * *

“Alex, dear, are you sure you’re not sleepy?”

“No, Mum, I’m _not_. Please, stop asking me that.” Alex shook his head conspicuously for effect, and his mother squeezed his hand briefly, not slowing down her pace.

It was not entirely true. Alex was aware that he was blinking a little too much than he should, and he was forced to admit that his head felt a bit heavy. But there was no way he’d admit this to his mum. Even at this hour in the evening, he had his pride. Besides, concern for his dad and uncle mingled with the beginning of excitement. He had not had a proper adventure in ages, and this sure looked like the start of a hell of one.

Although Cairo by night was certainly quite some adventure by itself. It was different, much creepier than in the dazzle of the day. Everything appeared to be a threat: the drop in temperatures, the small white houses all turned a similar dark grey, the pavements only lit by the little pools of bleak yellow light falling down from the street lamps, the lengthened shadows stretching over the walls and the streets… And you had to be extra careful to avoid the heaps of camel droppings when they were a little too close to the pavements.

Alex O’Connell had found himself looking into the newly-acquired eyes of the mummy Imhotep. He had faced a fierce red-clad warrior who would have taken sheer delight in strangling him. He had resurrected his mother at the Pyramid of Ahm Shere. Without exaggerating too much, he could consider himself a fairly brave boy of ten.

Yet he was perfectly content to cling at his mum’s hand and not let go as the both of them trotted along the darkened, colder streets.

“Don’t worry, Alex.” His mum’s voice made him look from the dark in front of him up to her face. “There’s nothing to fear.”

_How could she possibly…?_ Alex shrugged and shook his head. Maybe this thing about mums knowing everything was true, after all.

“What are we gonna do exactly, Mum?” he asked, keeping his voice as low as possible. “Are we just going over to Dr Hakim’s and throw pebbles at his windows till he opens the door?”

She slowed down and looked at him, the expression on her face difficult to tell for sure in the dark. “Now where did you get this idea from?”

Alex hoped that his innocent smile was as efficiently lit by dim street lamps as it was in the light of day. Over the years, he had observed both his dad and uncle getting away with a _lot_ with his mum on charm alone. As the two of them were quite different, Alex would only have to pick which tactic would be best for the occasion. Now, at the ripe age of ten years and one month, he had fairly well mastered a get-away smile of his own, something which he was rather proud of. And the best thing was that it worked with all three members of his family, most of the time.

It was his mother’s turn to shake her head, and Alex knew he had won this one when he saw a smile on her face. No matter what happened, his mum always smiled in the end, and this was one of the things that he loved most about her. Not all the other mums were like that.

“Bah. I don’t want to know.”

They had left the outskirts for Downtown Cairo, and were now walking along better-lit streets of smoother pavements. The light made the tall buildings appear taller, and you could actually see fifty feet ahead of you. It didn’t feel very different from London. Clearly the neighbourhood was wealthier and better-kept than the ones they’d seen so far, even if it still felt spooky and very eerie to be there by night.

As they walked past houses, Evelyn counted the numbers on the façades, finally stopping in front of a rather elegant-looking two-story house and heading decidedly to the door.

“I hope he’s not gone to bed already, or he won’t be in a good mood, I’m afraid,” Alex heard her mutter, before she rapped at the door. “Dr Hakim? It’s me, Evelyn O’Connell. I apologise for coming over so late, but the matter is important. Would you please let me in?” Nobody answered, and Evelyn came closer to the closed door, looking hesitant. “Dr Hakim? Are you awake at all? I swear this is serious –”

The door opened on her last word, and both she and Alex opened their mouths in surprise.

“The matter must be important indeed, to make you come here at this hour of the night, and with young Alexander, no less,” came the deep, gently lilting voice of Ardeth Bay.

“It’s good to see you, Ardeth,” eventually said Evelyn after she recovered from her surprise. The Medjai leader’s smile mirrored her own.

“It is always good to see you too, no matter the circumstances. Please come in.”

Evelyn did so, followed by Alex who, even if he wasn’t going to admit it, _was_ rather happy to leave the dark streets.

They walked up a flight of narrow stairs to find themselves on the threshold of an old-fashioned door, which Ardeth opened for them before slipping quietly behind them. The first thing Alex did was, as his dad had taught him, to scan the room for ways out and possible dangers. Most of the time, when they were on a dig, Mum and Dad left Alex in the entrance room of a pyramid, where he did not risk heat-stroke. However, upon crossing a threshold, Rick never failed to check out a room before setting a foot in it, something Alex had taken on quickly after seeing what could happen if one was not careful enough in a pyramid.

The room was flooded with warm amber light, quite unlike the cold street lamps, and looked quite cosy with the thick carpet on the floor, the deep armchairs around a low table, and the exposed beams along the ceiling. Sure enough – this was the Cairo Museum curator’s house, after all – an imposing library full of old-looking books covered an entire wall, and further in the room stood a big desk covered in maps, stationary, and an impressive collection of pen holders.

But the comparison with any ordinary house stopped here. There was Ancient Egyptian stuff all over the room, going from framed pieces of parchments hung on the walls, to canopic jars neatly arranged on a chest of drawers, through various-sized statuettes on the bookshelves, and chests around the coffee table like footstools. There was even a small sarcophagus against one wall. Looking at it, and at the various items filling the room, Alex wondered how it was possible that none of these remains had caused any catastrophe at the time of their removal. Like waking up an evil mummy, for example.

Dr Hakim rose from his armchair to greet Evelyn and Alex as Ardeth closed the door behind him. “Good evening, Dr O’Connell, please do take a seat. You are welcome to do so as well, young Master O’Connell.”

“Thanks,” said Alex with a quick, rather uncertain glance at the severe-looking man. He watched as Ardeth sat in the armchair beside him with a slight rustle of black robes. The man caught his gaze, and a small smile pulled at one corner of his lips. Alex slightly relaxed into his armchair. He couldn’t tell why, but this smile somehow always managed to make him feel better, no matter the occasion.

“I’m truly sorry to disturb you at this hour in the evening, Doctor,” his mum was saying to Hakim. “But my husband and my brother have disappeared, and I think it might be linked to the theft of the Diamond of Ahm Shere.”

Alex’s eyes were back on Hakim as he leaned back in his armchair and nodded. “Ah… yes. We are already aware of Messrs O’Connell’ and Carnahan’s disappearance.”

Evelyn’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, ‘aware’? What happened? Where are they?”

“Evelyn, please,” said Ardeth, and he didn’t so much as flinch as Alex’s mum turned one of her fiercest gazes on him. Alex’s respect for the Medjai leader increased. Even Dad would sometimes be wary of that Look. “Almost everything we know has been gathered this afternoon by word of mouth. We haven’t had time to do anything else yet.”

“When exactly were you planning to tell me?” Evelyn’s voice was edging dangerously close to anger. Alex had more mixed feelings. For the moment, the most prominent was curiosity. He was just dying to hear what the two men had to say.

“Just before you knocked on the door, we were discussing the hour in the morning when we could go to your house without waking you up and tell you everything.”

“You could even turn up at midnight, or five, I wouldn’t have minded,” said Evelyn, not much calmer. “Now what do you know, exactly?”

They told her and Alex pretty much the same story Satiah had, up until the point where Rick, Jonathan and Mr Ferguson had driven off in someone else’s car. Alex smirked at that. Despite everything his mum said about how a respectable citizen should be law-abiding and honest, his uncle’s little skills had come in handy more often than she cared to admit. Not to mention that she often conveniently forgot that, whenever she entered a tomb, it was because she had broken into it in the first place.

“But if they did escape, why haven’t they returned yet? What happened to them?” The question his mother had just asked had been running in Alex’s mind for a while, and he had a hunch that it had been the same for his mum.

Hakim frowned a little at that, looking grim. “Well, according to eyewitnesses, they drove all the way to Dr Wittgenstein’s excavation camp near Giza, and the car stopped in the middle of the tents.”

“Why would they stop?” Mum’s voice was suddenly much lower.

“The men pursuing them – we do not know who they were, but it appears that they looked quite the professionals – were shooting at them. One must have hit a target.”

Alex’s insides turned abruptly into ice, and his mum’s face went pale. “Oh, my God… You mean…?”

“Nobody was hurt, it seems,” added Ardeth quickly. “But when I went there to investigate a few hours ago, I found that the car had fallen from a height of six or seven feet, and one of the tyres had been perforated by a bullet.”

Evelyn was silent for a minute, long enough for Alex to chime in. “And…” he asked, rather hesitant and uncertain all of a sudden as Hakim’s beady eyes fell on him. “What happened? After they stopped, I mean?”

He was almost afraid to hear the answer. And when Ardeth looked at him with something on his face that was hard to tell, he got not a little bit scared.

“Well,” said Ardeth, shifting his gaze from son to mother, “the man called Ferguson drew a gun and pointed it at Jonathan.”

Silence fell like a slab of solid lead. Alex was vaguely aware that he had his mouth open and was probably looking like an idiot, but he didn’t give a damn right now. Beside him, Mum had also her mouth slightly open, her eyes showing sad surprise. She blinked, then shook her head slowly. “Oh, dear… Something like this had to happen. I saw something like this coming, but…”

“What a jerk!” Alex burst, startling his mother. “Stinking turncoat! We saw him the other day at the bazaar, and he acted all friendly-like, the damn git –”

It was a mark of how shocked his mum had been that she only stopped him there with a sharp “Alex! Language!”

Alex cast her the most sheepish glance he could, still quite angry. The guy had been so nice and funny whenever he’d met him, and that had been all an act? Lousy traitor. Not for the first time, Alex wished he would grow faster. That way he’d be able to punch the wind out of that goddamn two-faced scumbag who had betrayed his uncle and kidnapped his dad.

“I hope Dad punches his head off,” he muttered, and his mother threw a warning glance at him, but nothing else. When he slipped a glance to Ardeth, though, he thought he saw something like amusement flash briefly on his face.

“So Tom Ferguson was working with those men…” Evelyn had recovered from her surprise and was now back to musing out loud, as she often did when she thought about something. “They must have been well organised to set up an operation like this. Who were they? What did they look like?”

“They were described as a handful of Englishmen, dressed in black and wearing felt hats,” answered Ardeth. “About six of them, looking as if they were trained for this sort of thing.”

That reminded Alex of some bad guys in some gangster films he’d seen, the ones with the big guns, big scars and smooth, shiny cars. Of course, his mum was never too keen on him seeing those sorts of movies, insisting that it was surely too scary for him. He hadn’t told her yet that some stuff that had happened to him in real life was much, much scarier than everything he had seen on a screen so far.

A silence followed Ardeth’s words, then Evelyn shook her head, frowning. “This doesn’t make any sense. Who would kidnap Rick and Jonathan? Why them?”

“You told us earlier that you thought this had some kind of link with the Diamond of Ahm Shere,” Dr Hakim said, his eyes keener than ever. “This happens to be our opinion as well. What could motivate such an action, unless it be the need for information?”

“Hang on,” interrupted Alex, who had a hard time keeping up with Hakim’s elaborate phrasing. “That means that whoever’s taken Dad and Uncle Jon wanted some information about the diamond, doesn’t it? But if they have the diamond now, what’s the use?”

“This is what we were wondering as well,” said Ardeth with a slight smile of his own, and Alex felt a mix of pride and annoyance that this was not getting them very far.

And then, at this point, Mum’s eyes began to shine with the funny glint that meant things were about to get interesting. “Tell me, Ardeth… Just how far does the link between the Diamond and the Oasis of Ahm Shere go?”

Ardeth and Hakim shared an equally appreciative glance; then the Medjai leader looked at Evelyn, his warm black eyes smiling at her. “So you remember, after all. I might have known.” His eyes took on an intense look, as they did whenever he was telling a story of the ancient times. “The link between the two is powerful. Without the Diamond the Oasis cannot exist. And of course, without the Oasis, the Diamond is pointless, just an ordinary gem.”

“Don’t you need the Bracelet of Anubis to find the Oasis?” Alex piped in, feeling that as long as the Pyramid and especially the Bracelet was being discussed he could have a word in. After all, he was the one who’d got almost killed by it last time. Besides, his mum didn’t seem to mind very much.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” explained Ardeth, apparently ignoring Dr Hakim’s annoyed frown at Alex. “The Bracelet was indeed a guide, a precious one, and as such it was protected fiercely by each succeeding Pharaoh’s best guards.” There he glanced quickly at Evelyn, and Alex remembered what his mum had told him about her past life as Nefertiri, Pharaoh Seti’s daughter.An actual princess from Ancient Egypt, a fighter trained to protect precious artefacts. Alex still had trouble wrapping his head around that. It seemed impossibly cool. “But the Diamond and the Oasis are very intricately linked. For millennia people have believed that the Oasis hid an entire pyramid made of gold, and when the knowledge about the resting place of the Army of Anubis faded from memories, it was what lured many men into seeking the Oasis. may remember that quite a number of men found their way there, and we saw what became of them.”

While Ardeth talked, Alex picked up a thick paper clip from Hakim’s desk nearby to keep his hands busy as he listened. He always loved exciting stories. That – coupled with his parents’ passion, of course – had been what drew him to Egyptian history.

“Some of these men must have come near enough to see the Diamond gleaming at the top of the pyramid in the distance, but not dared to come closer, thus spreading the word that the whole pyramid was made of gold, inside and out.

“As time passed, history became legend, and the Oasis disappeared from popular memory. However, there were always men foolish or greedy enough to attempt the pursuit of the Oasis of Ahm Shere. Legends involving gold are often those that last longest.

“But nobody ever unveiled the secret of Ahm Shere… until the last Year of the Scorpion, when the Bracelet of Anubis was uncovered by you, Evelyn, and your family. We all know what ensued.”

Alex listened raptly, still fiddling with the paper clip. At Ardeth’s last words, he straightened in his chair and blurted out, “When I was with Imhotep down in that oasis, he told Hafez something about the Bracelet being some sort of key to the Scorpion King… What did he mean by that?”

“Young man, did nobody teach you to listen to your elders and keep quiet whilst they speak?” said Hakim severely. Alex just stared back at him, undeterred. Of course the rules of proper conduct demanded silence from kids. But he had never been one to keep silent when he had a question.

Besides, from the look on his mum’s face, it seemed that she had Thoughts on the matter.

“Dr Hakim,” she said, her voice quite polite and cool – a little too much so, “I have the greatest respect for you and your work, but Alex is _my_ son, and I believe _I_ should be the one to decide whether to tell him off or not if he misbehaves. And I do not think that asking questions that are relevant to this conversation can be considered as misbehaving.”

Wham. _Way to go, Mum_. Alex refrained from beaming at his mum – perhaps that would have been a little too much. She did not often defend him this fiercely; when she did, it was always very effective.

There was a rather awkward pause, as Hakim stared at Evelyn, his black eyebrows raised in surprise; and as a grinning Alex turned his eyes to Ardeth Bay, he saw that the Medjai, by his own distinctive standards, seemed to be trying hard to force down a smile.

“So,” Alex asked, as if nothing had happened, “what did Imhotep mean?”

“Exactly what he said. Not only was the Bracelet a guide, showing its bearer the way to Ahm Shere by means of visions and clues, it was also the key to revive the Scorpion King.”

“Can the pyramid – and the oasis – exist after the death of the Scorpion King, then?” asked Evelyn, her eyes shining with curiosity again.

“The Scorpion King and his army have been kept five thousand years while the Oasis and the pyramid were never hidden from human eyes,” said Ardeth. “Despite what happened after Rick O’Connell killed the Scorpion King, it is my opinion that the Pyramid is still there as we speak, buried under the sands, dead as a house abandoned by its only master for millennia.”

A heavy silence followed these words. Evelyn had noticed Alex fingering the large paper clip and motioned discreetly at him to put it back where he had picked it up. Alex absently put it in his pocket instead. Nobody would miss one when there were dozens just like it on the desk, and it could always come in handy sometime.

“It doesn’t tell us,” Evelyn said after a little while, frowning, “what the men who have taken my husband and my brother have in mind.”

“No, it does not,” Hakim agreed in his low-pitched, gently accented voice. “Whatever their purpose may be, if they manage to find a way inside the Pyramid, they will find nothing but dead stones – just an empty shell.”

Silence filled the room once more, while Alex’s mind was filled with fresh questions. The one he turned and turned again in his head was what the hell those guys, whoever they may be, had taken Dad and Uncle Jon for. The one he refused to dwell upon was what these same guys would do if Hakim’s words proved true. No, he definitely didn’t want to think about _that_.

The two Medjai started to elaborate theories which would explain the weird men’s hidden purpose, while Evelyn kept silent, her face still sombre. Alex looked past Hakim at the window in front of him. The curtains were open, and he could see a patch of ink-black sky, where he looked in vain for stars. Clouds must be darkening the sky and making it impossible to see anything.

It wasn’t lost on Alex that this reflected their current predicament perfectly.

* * *

The ground was shaking. Not just shaking, but rattling and rolling too. Rick was aware of regularly bumping against something that felt like a wall, and that made his whole left side hurt from shoulder to hip. Now that was something new. He sure could recall times when he had gone through far worse and not been really bothered by bruises afterwards. _Mmh. Guess I’m getting a little old for this._

“Um. Are you awake?” came a tentative voice he quickly identified as Jonathan’s.

“More or less,” Rick muttered, rolling onto his right side and trying to get a bit steadier on the ground. Then he noticed the rising heat that he had blissfully been unaware of in his sleep. “What’s the time?”

“Come on now, Rick,” came Jonathan’s voice again behind him, sounding kind of relieved, “that’s hardly the proper question one would usually ask in circumstances like these.”

_Yeah, sure_. Damn this elaborate phrasing first thing in the morning. But Rick had a hunch that wherever all this crazy stuff was heading to, it was not going to be quite ‘usual’. Hell, he was almost glad to hear the slight touch of sarcasm in his brother-in-law’s voice. How could things get more unusual after that?

“So what would be the _proper_ question, then?” he drawled, opening his eyes to assess their surroundings.

“Why, I might be wrong, of course, but I do think that ‘Where are we?’ would be more accurate.”

Rick sat up and looked at Jonathan. “Well you _are_ wrong. It’s pretty obvious where we are. We’re in some kinda truck, and it’s driving off to God knows where. Oh, and it’s a pretty bad road. But I’m sure you knew that already,” he added with a smirk.

A particularly nasty jolt of the truck followed, as if to back his words. There was a pause, and Rick almost snorted at his brother-in-law’s miffed expression, almost a pout. This was one of those rare times he could observe genuinely close similarities between Evy and Jonathan. Sister and brother were such polar opposites that it was almost easy to forget that the two were siblings at all.

“To answer your first question, old boy,” Jonathan said after a while, a little stiffly, “it’s about half past eight in the morning.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I’ve just woken up myself a few minutes ago. And I didn’t want you to get cranky from lack of sleep. You did look like you needed it.”

“I’m never cranky.”

It was Jonathan’s turn to smirk. Rick ignored him and ran a hand in his hair to scratch the back of his head, careful of the lump from the day before. He had just remembered something.

“Hey, there was a woman on the other side of the wall, last night. Said she was Ferguson’s wife.”

Jonathan’s slightly slanted eyes went suddenly as round as saucers. “What, Lizzie? You mean Elizabeth Ferguson was here?!”

“Yep. So it’s true you two knew each other, huh?”

A slight smile made its way on the Englishman’s bemused face. “Y—yes… We used to hang around together at university. With Tom. So,” he added a little too quickly, “what the hell was she doing down there?”

“Well, it seems that whatever Ferguson’s been messing with, it’s pretty serious. She said she’d been taken from her house someplace in England and brought here for guarantee. You know, blackmail. Sounds like she’s really scared for her husband, and that those guys have given her every reason to be.”

“They didn’t… hurt her or anything, did they?” said Jonathan, alarmed. Rick shook his head.

“No, they didn’t. I mean, she thinks they drugged her, because she only started to hear us last night, but otherwise she sounded fine to me.”

Jonathan nodded. “Good.” Then he rested his chin on his knees and fixed a point somewhere near Rick, frowning slightly. “That’s good.” Something flickered over his face, and the frown deepened. “So that was the ‘choice’ he was talking about, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

After half a second of thinking, though, Rick knew what he meant. Ferguson did have a choice: betrayal or widowerhood. Tough one. With a very slight wince, Rick realised that if himself had been forced to deliver a former school buddy – or orphanage buddy, as it were – to odd guys to save his wife, he sure as hell would have done it without even thinking.

On the other hand, what Ferguson had done had really been dirty, even with the best excuses. He had manipulated and fooled nearly everybody, gained their relative trust, only to two purposes: getting his hands on the Diamond of Ahm Shere and bringing the two of them to his bosses.

Nearly everybody. Rick felt a surge of pride about his wife – Evy’s misgivings had been justified, and Ferguson had not managed to twist her around his little finger like that – mingled with annoyance. He was none too pleased with himself for not having seen that there was something shifty about that guy too eager to please.

Then something peculiar crossed his mind. “_Lizzie_? Gee, you guys must’ve been pretty close if you got so familiar with a girl. And I thought you Brits were supposed to be gentlemen.”

Jonathan’s right eyebrow shot up, his face set in marble. “Englishmen are not ‘supposed’ to be gentlemen, O’Connell. They _are_.”

Rick couldn’t help but grin impishly. “So there was definitely something, then.”

One single brown eyebrow crept up even higher as Jonathan cocked his head forward and said, his voice carefully even, “Pray tell, what exactly makes you say that?”

Rick’s sly grin widened. Despite the bumps and holes in the road, this was getting funnier and funnier. “Because usually, when you speak of somebody ‘belonging to the fairer sex’, as Evy would put it, you brag endlessly for a while and then forget the girl in the following month. You still haven’t forgotten her after several years, so… well, no need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that it’s unusual with you.”

“How very astute,” deadpanned Jonathan, probably painfully aware that his ears were turning a delicate shade of pink.

It was hard enough for Rick to keep a straight face, but as he pictured Evy’s face had she been there to see her brother so embarrassed about a woman, he had to look down and pretend to take a great interest in his shoes to hide his laughter.

When he finally felt safe enough, Rick looked up again, to find a pair of dead serious blue eyes narrowed at him. “I completely fail to see the funny side of this.”

Whoa. One odd thing with Jonathan was that, the more embarrassed he was, the more stuck-up his phrasing would get. Rick eventually cracked and let out a loud guffaw, while his brother-in-law rolled his eyes.

“Oh, bugger off,” he muttered, the corners of his mouth finally pulled in a reluctant grin.

Rick was still in pretty high spirits when the truck slowed to a stop and the back doors were pulled open. Blinding white light rushed in, along with the dust and heat of the outside.

“Gentlemen, I will ask you to get down,” came a smug voice Rick knew only too well. Sure enough, when his sight adjusted to the change in brightness, Oddball Number One was standing in the open doors, his black suit a hole in a rectangle of light. As Jonathan got up behind him, looking uncertain, Rick stared at the newcomer, his eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t say the magic word,” he drawled.

Three gunmen seemed to appear out of thin air behind Number One, and aimed guns at the two of them. Number One smirked. “If you please.”

Rick shrugged and started to make his way down, followed by Jonathan who cast a swift glare in passing at Number One from narrowed blue eyes. The latter looked back at him just as coldly.

To Rick’s surprise, they seemed to be in a town – in Giza, more specifically, as he just had the time to realise before the goons who were holding him at gunpoint made him enter a house very close to where the truck had been parked. He didn’t know this part of the city very well, but he had been there a few times before and had a good memory.

They crossed a couple of rooms, which looked like any local house’s would, then the guys in black made them walk a small flight of stairs down to a sort of basement or cave, which looked a lot like the one they had left earlier.

“Again?!” Rick stared at the four men in disbelief. “You guys never heard of a little something called originality?” Number One stared at him, his eyes narrowed behind his small glasses, and his mouth set.

“And whatever were you expecting, Mr O’Connell?” he asked, his voice just as soft as his eyes were cold. “A stone dungeon? Or a bullet in the back of your neck, perhaps?”

“Ah, I don’t mean to interrupt or anything,” said Jonathan behind Rick, his voice steadier than the American would have thought it to be in circumstances like those, “but if you bothered to keep us alive so far, I reckon it’s not for art’s sake, now, is it?”

_Good point. Except that if they keep sending us what they call coffee, we’ll drop dead before we know it_.

“Although you seem to have a peculiar conception of art, Mr Carnahan, there is something in what you’re saying,” Number One said, sounding remarkably like a hungry toad that had a fly in sight. “But it’s not for you to know. Now, if you would step in, please.”

No matter how childish it surely was, Rick sorely wanted to stomp on the guy’s feet as he walked in the room – but he restrained himself, thinking instead of the moment when he would get his hands on a gun and have a little fun with him. Or even just punch his teeth in. Oh yeah. No matter how long it would take, this guy would get what was coming to him.

This shiny, warming thought in mind, Rick turned back toward Jonathan and Number One, who was about to close the door with a falsely polite bow of his head.

“Gentlemen, till our next meeting.”

Rick gnashed his teeth. Sarcasm and kidnapping aside, there was something animal-like in him that hated the guy. Something visceral. Like a physical thing.

And then something rather unexpected happened. Or not that unexpected, all things considered.

Jonathan walked a step or two back toward Number One.

“I say, er, What’s-your-name?” he piped up. Rick could see the quiet sort of smirk that was right at home on his brother-in-law’s face, though it looked a little bit subdued right now. “Think you’ve dropped this.”

And he threw a worn leather wallet at Number One, whose expression turned rather dirty as he caught it in mid-air.

Rick grinned widely.

The situation hadn’t changed one iota, the two of them were still as weaponless as they had been twelve hours ago, and he still didn’t fully know why they had been brought there in the first place…

But the look on the guy’s face was hilarious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wish we could have seen more of Jon’s skills as a pickpocket in the 2nd film, because honestly, for a dilettante, the bloke is top notch. Stealing from a guy on fire? And later in the midst of being strangled? My hero :P
> 
> Hope you liked! (and yes, that also means you lurkers who don't leave reviews. I don't mind, but I'd like to know what you thought about the story/chapters :o)


	9. Venture

To say that dawn was Evelyn’s favourite moment of the day would not have been quite right. Back home in London, sunrise or the minutes preceding it was something like the calm before the storm, a welcome lull during which she would get some time to cast off the last remnants of sleep. It was also the first moment of the day that she spent together with her husband and son, and she loved the little routine that had gradually settled between them.

On weekdays, Evelyn usually got up first, and then was the first to go downstairs to the kitchen and pick up the bottles of milk outside the smaller kitchen’s door. Then Rick would join her and help her with toast while she sipped her tea and fixed his coffee and Alex’s breakfast, who, despite some grumpy mornings, was generally never very long to turn up for any meal. After breakfast, Rick would drop Alex at his school on his way to work, while on fair-weather days she’d take out her bicycle to ride to the British Museum.

But here… Egypt made everything different. The ‘Land of Living Sand’, as she remembered her mother’s usual expression, was a land of contrasts. The night was as cold as the day was hot in the desert. In the city, when the sun rose, seeing sunlight creeping down the white-washed house fronts was just as heartening as was the gradual sensation of heat slowly warming up the air around you and the ground beneath your feet. Everything changed, from the temperature to the colours, and all things seemed to come back to life in one fluid movement. Each morning a resurrection took place.

Such thoughts Evelyn welcomed as she walked along the streets of Cairo on this early Sunday morning. Even if it didn’t drive away her worries, it did wonders to abate her concern somewhat. She had missed the Egyptian sunrise. The little flat-roofed houses slowly regained their whitish colour, tinged with a yellow shade that gradually lightened as the sun rose higher in the sky.

Although the sensation of gradual warmth did not raise her spirits the way it would have done in other circumstances, she felt that it would probably have been worse had they been in London. After an entire night spent in research, building up theories and plans with Dr Hakim and Ardeth Bay, the three of them were still without a clue. It was not without difficulty that Evelyn had finally agreed with Ardeth and headed home to get some rest.

Alex had been sleeping for a while now already, and was still fast asleep now as Ardeth carried him home. Her boy had bravely held on until he finally dropped on Hakim’s couch at about five in the morning, exhausted. The break of dawn had been a sign that it was high time to leave and get some rest. Evelyn doubted she would fall asleep quickly, considering the impressive amount of mint tea she had downed throughout the night to keep herself awake, and Hakim made it quite strong. She had hesitated about waking Alex or not, till Ardeth had kindly suggested carrying him home himself. Evelyn had a feeling that the wish to see the two O’Connells home safe and sound had prompted the suggestion just as much as friendship.

Despite the rising cheer of the Egyptian dawn, and Ardeth’s quietly reassuring countenance, she felt tired, along with hungry, and not a little bit discouraged. Something of it must have been showing on her face, because as they turned round a corner not very far from her house, Ardeth looked at her with a funny expression in his black eyes. “Don’t be so disheartened, Evelyn. Even if we haven’t managed to get all the pieces together last night, we _will_ find them.”

Evelyn let out a little laugh, low enough not to wake Alex. “You really are unpredictable, Ardeth. You weren’t nearly as optimistic last time we went to search for a missing member of the family.”

Ardeth’s sudden grin lit up his dark face. “I’m afraid it’s a habit we Medjai seem to have. Expect the worst, and doubly enjoy the best when it comes at last.”

Evelyn couldn’t help a grin, too. “I must admit that it sounds like a good philosophy. But tell me, then – what makes you so certain this time that we will find Rick and Jonathan?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I almost never rely on certainties. But I have faith in our stubbornness, as well as in the both of them. I now believe O’Connell to be able to more or less get out of any difficult situation, and for all his faults, your brother can prove remarkably resourceful as well.”

So understatements were not the prerogative of the English after all. Picturing what Jonathan’s expression would be if someone told him Ardeth had called him ‘resourceful’, Evelyn smiled as she picked up her keys from her pocket and opened the door.

The dark, silent house felt empty when she entered it with Ardeth slipping in behind her, quick and quiet as a shadow. Everything was just as she had left it when she had gone last evening to the British Consulate after her lengthy conversation with Satiah. Rick’s trilby was left untouched on the chest of drawers in the living room, and she had even forgotten to bring the tea tray back to the kitchen. The abandoned cups, milk jug, teapot and cold kettle made for an oddly lonely picture in the light of the small lamp she had just turned on; the shutters had been closed all day to keep the heat away, and she didn’t feel like opening them now. Something twisted in Evelyn’s insides, an emptiness that she quickly dismissed, putting it down to exhaustion. She gave a sigh as she turned away from the table, gently rubbing the bridge of her nose.

_Wait a minute. Something doesn’t look right here_. Evelyn turned back to the table, blinking furiously to erase all traces of sleep, and only then did she take notice of the square envelope lying right there on the table, plain as day.

“Ardeth!” she whispered as loud as she dared to the Medjai who had one foot on the first step to the first floor. Alex stirred a little in his arms. “Have you seen this?” Curiosity, mingled with dread, overtook any trace of weariness, and she swiftly grasped the letter. She had a fairly good idea what it was about.

Ardeth nodded. The light didn’t quite reach him where he was standing, and she could only see his chin, his high cheekbones, and the tip of his aquiline nose. Everything else was hidden in shadow.

“I have, but if I may, I’ll put Alexander to bed first. I’ll be downstairs in a minute.”

Evelyn nodded, a little ashamed that she had not had this reaction herself. But as she gazed down at the letter and waited for her friend to come down, a sinking feeling of foreboding began to creep into her stomach. This particular letter would be no good at all.

Ardeth was soon downstairs and standing beside Evelyn as she ripped the paper open. The letter was wordy, but short enough.

> _Mrs O’Connell,_
> 
> _As you may have guessed by now, your husband Rick O’Connell and your brother Jonathan Carnahan are, as we write, enjoying our company in a place that I am sure you will understand we will keep secret. They will be brought back to you in due time, when what is expected of them is completed, and this only if you do not have the rather foolish impulse to do something rash like going to the police._
> 
> _I am positive we understand each other, Mrs O’Connell. We are a powerful organisation, and will not be troubled by impulsive actions, especially on your part._
> 
> _Yours respectfully._

Evelyn would have wanted to say something, anything, but her throat felt too tight to talk. Instead, she let go of the letter, which now seemed to burn her fingers. Ardeth was looking at her, but she avoided his gaze, aware that she was blinking more than was usually necessary. Her vision was slightly blurred at the edges, and she wasn’t sure whether tiredness was the sole reason.

“Well, at least the cat is out of the bag now,” she said shakily when she could find her voice again, sounding like a pale imitation of herself.

Ardeth appeared grave. When Evelyn felt collected enough again to look at him, he said, “Whatever cat you are speaking about, this certainly is an important discovery.”

Evelyn’s tight lips relaxed for a second in an ever-so-slight smile. Ardeth always said that for all his good will, he would never quite get used to colloquialisms.

“Don’t worry about it more than you already do, Evelyn,” he carried on gently, seemingly not noticing her slight change of expression. “Those who have written this letter meant only to frighten you into inactivity. However, we must be careful. Do you mind if I take this letter to Fahad Hakim? I promise that it will be back before you know it.”

“Are you going back to Dr Hakim’s right now, then?” Evelyn asked, startled. “What about rest?”

“If this is what concerns you, don’t worry, I will get some soon,” Ardeth answered. “But I advise you to sleep now. Today will be a long day, and it would be best to get prepared for anything that might happen.”

Evelyn nodded, tiredness abruptly coming back so strongly that it almost drove even her fears away. She folded the letter and handed it to Ardeth, who took it and carefully put it in a pocket of his robes.

“I’ll be on my way, then,” he said as Evelyn showed him to the door. “Have a good rest, and make the most of it.”

“I promise I will,” she said with a tired smile, still blinking. “There’s simply no question of you waltzing off to some haphazard adventure in search of my husband and my brother without me.”

“I would have been greatly surprised otherwise,” said Ardeth with a smile of his own that made his eyes flash.

* * *

Thomas Ferguson had not closed an eye last night.

It wasn’t the first time that he stayed up all night, far from it. This sort of thing tended to happen fairly often in this line of work. He had got used to the headaches, the stiffness, and the coated tongue that usually followed a whole night spent doing paperwork and drinking Earl Greys, occasionally splashed with a shot of brandy. One or two by night, no more, was his general rule.

However, on this particular night, Tom hadn’t done any of the paperwork. He had simply, stupidly lain awake on his cot all night, pondering the situation.

_What a right fuckin’ mess_.

He had arrived at this conclusion early enough, despite the fact that he had truly grasped the extent of the Chamber’s plans when Gabriel bloody Baine and his hit squad had popped out of that Lincoln and told Jon, O’Connell and him to get in. At that moment, he had known that what he had dreaded and what nobody had told him was turning out to be true: the Chamber needed more than the diamond to achieve their goal; for some reason they wanted the people who had owned it as well. True to form, they had picked the first ‘suspects’ they had come across. And sent their most insufferable agent after them. Honestly, for all his posturing, agent Baine was little more than a smug thug with a thesaurus.

Tom shook his head, putting his pen back on the table and massaging the bridge of his nose. Why did it have to be Jon? And why did it have to be _him_ on this case? He had been genuinely glad to see his old mate again, to share memories of the good old days, and talk about their respective lives. And when they had phoned him in the early hours of the following morning to tell him what his assignment was going to be, he had protested vehemently. But his requests for another assignment had been rejected and he’d got stuck in this bloody shambles.

Never, in eight years of work, had he been so reluctant to complete an assignment. Jon wasn’t like most of the lads he had known from school, from friendly grown foreign, a stranger with nothing in common anymore. No matter how much each of them had changed, Tom had really felt, for a couple of hours, as if they were back in that little café on the bank of the River Cherwell with Liz, sharing some good laughs and a few silences.

War hadn’t shattered that right away. People had left, proud and glorious in spanking new uniforms, never to come back, while he worked himself to the bone trying to pay for his studies _and_ study at the same time. Edwin Farbow had joined up in August 1914 and died two months later. Arthur McAllister had been repatriated three years later with one foot missing, lost to trenchfoot disease. Elizabeth, who had joined up as a nurse and left for the front by then, had only found out he was even alive six months later.

The pressure on students to enlist had been tremendous. The Empire needed officers, and for some unfathomable reason one of the places they looked was 18 and 20 year old boys whose main concern so far had been not failing Ancient Greek.

Neither Tom nor Jon had been in a hurry to go to war, despite that pressure; it was Liz who had left first, surprisingly. Tom had barely finished his history degree in 1916 when he got conscripted two weeks after his 22nd birthday. Jon, six months younger, had enlisted right after, saying he was sick of getting white feathers1 handed to him in the street. They lost sight of each other after basic training; Tom only met him again briefly once or twice after the war before he and his sister Evelyn moved to Egypt for good.

Thus Tom Ferguson spent the last twenty months of the war in the Army Service Corps, driving ammunition, food, and equipment to and from the front, amidst shells and bullets and landmines. When the war was over, he had a captain’s rank and a real talent for driving in the worst kinds of conditions, but also a true horror of driving at all. Thank goodness for trams, buses and cabs.

It was on a train that he had met Liz again a few years later. Then they had met again, and one thing leading to another, realised that they couldn’t do without the other’s company.

Tom tried to blink away the sting in his eyes, the result of another sleepless night. He longed for Liz’s cool hand on his brow easing the worries away like she would do, or enveloping him in a tender hug. He longed to bury his face in her thick curly hair, breathe in the familiar scent of clove and vanilla, so sweet, so reassuring. Her very presence, however quiet, was indispensable to him, be it hearing her humming softly in another room, the sound of her feet on the floor, a glimpse of her as she passed, the rich colours of her dark red hair, a smile in her hazel eyes, the warmth of her lips… They had been apart before, sometimes for days, but both of them knew they had the other to come home to. Now that she had been taken away from him by force – not to mention the fact that he had strict orders not to see her – he truly realised how much he missed her. It was constantly there, like a knot in his throat that reminded him why he was doing what he was doing.

Throughout his career, he had had to do some dirty work now and then, but it never interfered with his personal life. For him, being a secret agent consisted of a lot of dull paperwork and very little actual field action, which he had eventually been happy about after reading a few fellow agents’ reports.

Oh sure, when the Chamber had contacted him at the very beginning he had been beside himself with joy. At last, a serious organisation, if a little obscure, with direct links to the British Government was interested enough in his work on ancient civilisations to hire him! Officially he was a consultant of the British Antique Research Department. In reality, he was a clerk in the Chamber of Horus, a secret governmental organisation specialised in keeping a watch over precious or supposed dangerous artefacts and acquiring them. The name originally came from the legendary secret treasure chamber said to be hidden in the depths of the Great Pyramid. Tom still didn’t really know for sure whether they had discovered it. His specialised field was the Valley of the Kings, not the north of Egypt, and any information was carefully compartmentalised.

He had known the bare bones about Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris, and the consequences of his affair with Pharaoh Seti 1’s concubine Anck-su-namun – not just the _hom-dai_ that had followed, but also some of what had happened both eleven and two years ago. It had been hard to lie to Jon. One of the reasons Tom was so seldom assigned to field work was his inability to lie without overacting and a certain tendency to blunder. Hiding things was not a big problem; as far as Elizabeth was concerned, he had been working for eight years for the Research Department. But he still had some difficulty with telling correctly a downright lie, lacking the aplomb for it.

Unlike Jon. Jon was by far one of the best liars he’d ever seen. That ability had got the two of them out of many a tricky situation.

The pen he’d put down earlier almost hit the wall. No matter how hard he tried to think seriously about his report, his thoughts always came back to either Liz or Jon.

Tom let out a frustrated sigh, furious with himself. For someone who liked life simple and comfortable, his current situation was anything but, between the concern gnawing at his guts and the feeling that a big part of this sorry mess, if not everything, was his fault.

Well, not quite everything, to be honest. But definitely a big part of it.

He had to explain himself, at least to Jon. There was no way in hell they’d let him see Liz, let alone talk to her, until the whole thing was over. Jon was easier to reach. Tom could always find one pretext or other that the henchmen would buy.

Right now was just the right time, too. The guards had been reduced to two rookies on Sundays, who probably wouldn’t dare question the word of a senior agent. The perfect circumstances for a word alone with Jon and O’Connell.

Tom holstered his service gun as he stood up and headed for the door of his office, much smaller than his cover office in the British Consulate in Cairo. Half of his files and books were there, and the other was here in his Giza office. He had hardly enough room for his desk, his chair and his coat-rack, which was fine for him. It wasn’t as if he spent such a lot of time in there anyway.

Only a couple of hours after lunchtime and it was already sweltering. Tom was sweating under the light jacket he was more or less forced to put on to hide the holster when walking in the street. Consequently he was in a bit of a bad mood when he finally arrived at the house the Chamber had requisitioned because of its good location and thick basement door, and used it to appear more self-confident than he felt.

“Ferguson,” he said after the regulation knock on the door and flashing his badge at the young agent. “I’m here to interrogate the prisoners.”

The lad – Michaels, Tom believed his name was – opened the door. He gave an embarrassed smile as Tom’s eyes fell on the lemonade glasses and honey cakes on the table, called his colleague to check his identity again, and showed him down the worn and dusty stairs. Tom found himself alone in front of the door with the keys before he could even think up a better excuse. It had not been three minutes since he had knocked at the door. Amazing. Either the newbies were amazingly incompetent, or he had the devil’s own luck for once.

Now that the two agents had gone back up to the ground floor to their lemonades, there was no sound other than the muffled voices, engaged in lively conversation, of the two ‘prisoners’ on the other side of the door. Tom hesitated for a few seconds, the memory of Jon’s fist the evening before still quite vivid in his jaw. But he kept reminding himself that sorting things out with his mate was worth the risk.

With an intake of breath as if before a plunge, Tom took out the keys and opened the door.

The conversation ceased immediately, and he found himself under the fire of two pairs of bright blue eyes, one round and furious, the other slightly slanted and cold. It unnerved him for a second.

“Oh,” Jon said in an absolutely flat tone, as if Tom was something nasty stuck on the sole of his shoe, “it’s you.”

Tom paid no attention to the sudden pang in his heart and closed the door behind him. “Hi, Jon,” he attempted rather lamely. “O’Connell,” he added after a second, with a slight nod to the American.

Neither of the two moved.

“What are you here for exactly?” asked Jon in a cold voice he had never used to talk to Tom before.

“Yeah,” came O’Connell’s quiet growl. “Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna get hit?” After a second’s glance at Jon two steps behind him, he added, “… Again?”

Something flickered over Jon’s face, like the ghost of a grin. This perhaps did more harm to Tom than his former friend’s tone of voice.

Tom shook his head. “Look, I kinda have an idea of what you’re thinking right now. But if you feel like takin’ it out on me, at least wait till you know why you’re here.”

“I’m sure you and your bosses have a very important reason for keeping us in here. But we’re more interested in getting out. What makes you think you’re just gonna walk out of here when you could be our ticket out, buddy?” O’Connell said, a dangerous expression on his face.

Tom’s heart rate picked up speed. Not that he was truly surprised. He’d seen prisoners escape with the unwilling help of a hostage, and he simply wasn’t going to make that blunder. He stood his ground and took out his gun in a swift move.

“Well, this, for one,” he said simply.

O’Connell didn’t say nor do anything, but his bright burning gaze remained fixed on Tom. As for Jon, he just stood there silently, but there was something on his face that made Tom avoid looking at him in the eyes.

“Look,” he finally repeated, “I came here by myself. No one knows I’m here but the two agents up the stairs. I’m not acting under orders now, all right?”

“And after all the rot you’ve been feeding us, we’re actually supposed to believe you?” Jon piped up. His narrowed eyes, totally devoid of warmth, made a stark contrast with his nonchalant attitude, hands casually buried in his pockets.

“Yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do,” snapped Tom. “For chrissakes, man, I’m ‘ere to help!”

“Then why don’t ya let us out, huh?” deadpanned O’Connell, his eyes still fixed on him. Tom stared back.

“I can’t do that. They’d hurt me wife if I did.”

“We figured that out, thanks,” said Jon, an unreadable expression on his face. Tom turned to him, surprised.

“How’s that?”

“Because I spent half the night talking to her yesterday,” O’Connell said. “She was in the cell thing right next to ours.”

Tom’s heart missed a beat.

“You talked to Liz? How is she? Is she all right?”

“Seems she is,” said Jon, with in his voice something that sounded like a sneer and didn’t suit him at all, “and not thanks to you.”

Tom couldn’t help a withering glare. “D’you really think this is a time for witty remarks?”

Jon’s eyes went round. “Could you think of a better time?”

“Actually, yeah, I could!”

“All right, stop it, you two,” O’Connell cut in, looking a bit exasperated. “Jeez, you sound like a couple of kids. You, get to the point. You, let him talk.”

Jon shot the American a rather dirty look, but didn’t add anything. Tom holstered his gun and took the opportunity to speak, somewhat grateful for O’Connell’s intervention.

“Right. Well, as you may have guessed, I don’t really work for the British Antique Research Department –” a snort interrupted him, and he glowered at Jon “– but for a governmental institution called the Chamber of Horus, and we’re supposed to look after dangerous ancient artefacts. That’s why the diamond of Ahm Shere was removed from the museum – right, Jon, if you snigger one more time I’ll just leave here and not come back.”

“_Please_,” Jon said sarcastically before O’Connell could say anything, “do carry on. I’d _hate_ to interrupt you.”

Torn between remorse and sheer exasperation, Tom cast another quick glare at his former friend, and continued, “So the diamond was taken. My assignment was initially to try and keep the curator busy while a team took the diamond… But right before the start of the mission, the day before in fact, I bumped into you totally by chance – yes, _that_ much is true – and me bosses changed their plans.

“They decided to use you as a connection to the Museum through the curator in order to get me inside the museum in the first place. But you were so eager to show me that diamond that everything went much quicker than expected.”

Tom preferred to stop there, because facing the combined looks of a pained and furious Jon and an equally furious O’Connell was a bit much. He carried on despite the lump in his throat that he fought hard to swallow.

“Jon, you have to believe me when I say that I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do anything as far as you and your family were concerned, and I certainly didn’t want you involved in this mess! But you must understand that orders are something you can’t just ignore…” Christ, how stupid he sounded! “I – I don’t know what they would have done, but it wouldn’t’ve been very nice. These folks don’t joke, mate.”

“Oh really? I sort of felt that when they bashed my head in twice,” sneaked Jon with so much venom that even O’Connell glanced at him with a slightly surprised expression. Tom tried to steel himself.

“Look, the evening before the theft of the diamond, I was told that I was to help the team in it, meaning let you be stunned and then be knocked out too meself. I said no, that there was no way in hell I’d let anybody hurt you to serve their interests. That’s when they told me that I didn’t really have a choice.”

He took in a long breath, and to his relief, neither Jon nor O’Connell said anything in the meantime.

“They showed me a picture of Liz in a room I didn’t recognise, with in her hands an issue of the _Voice of Cairo_. They told me that they had guessed I’d say that, and that if I didn’t obey orders, I’d receive bits and pieces of her… a finger… a toe… every day.” His voice broke a little. For a second time he tried to swallow the lump in his throat, without much success. “I didn’t know they could actually do something like that, but I wasn’t that surprised somehow.”

Again, Tom stopped and nobody said anything. This time it was Jon’s turn to avoid his gaze, but O’Connell still stared at him with something like interest in his bright blue eyes.

“What would _you_ have done if it were you?” asked Tom, turning to the American, suddenly angry. “If you’d seen a picture of your wife like that, and heard them sayin’ they’d torture her if you didn’t obey? Wouldn’t you have done everything you could for all this bloody mess to end quick?”

“Cool down, I get your point,” O’Connell said slowly. “I’d never do anything that put Evy in danger. But if some bunch of weirdos had kidnapped her, I sure as hell would have done everything to find her and get her outta here.”

Tom shook his head. “You don’t understand. I can’t just leave this job. They’d find us anywhere and kill us.”

“Now you’re just being paranoid,” muttered Jon, his voice a little bit shaky. “Surely you can’t be _that_ important?”

“Not really, Jon, but I know a lot of stuff that could be dangerous for them. I’m just a pawn in the game, but they can’t afford to lose any.”

“What game are you talking about?” O’Connell asked lowly, his eyes narrowing. “What kind of twisted game is that?”

That’s the moment the door chose to open with a grim creak.

“One with extremely important resonance, Mr O’Connell,” said a low, chilling voice from the threshold.

Charles K. Hamilton stood there, flanked by none other than Baine and an unassuming fellow named Stephens, and wearing what came closest to a smile on his face.

* * *

“Who the hell are you?”

Rick had never seen this guy before. He had never even seen anything like this guy before. Oddball Number One he knew, sort of, and the second goon was an unknown quantity, but this guy… He was _clean_. Despite the fact that he came from the hot and dusty outside, there was not a single grey hair sticking out and his suit was perfect. He looked so immaculate it was disturbing.

When you looked further than the suit, though, there was just something creepy about the guy. Real creepy. Apart from his black suit, an oddity in itself, everything about him was grey – his hair, the hue of his skin, and his eyes. Those eyes were the coldest Rick had looked upon in a couple of years.

Rick’s eyes fell on the two Englishmen. Ferguson had blanched, and Jonathan wore a weird expression on his face.

Then it dawned on him. “_I’ve just met Nosferatu_”, “_His boss wanted to see me about what happened at the Museum two days ago. Seems that the Research Department was keeping an eye on the diamond_…”

“You’re his boss, right?” he said to the newcomer, jerking a thumb toward Ferguson without looking at him. “The guy Jonathan went to see yesterday.”

Unlike the rest of his person, the creep’s teeth showed white when he unveiled his eye-teeth in some grim attempt at a smile. Rick almost expected them to be grey as well.

“You know, Mr O’Connell, from what I had gathered so far, you didn’t strike me as the smart sort.” Here he glanced sideways to Number One, who offered the American his slimiest, most toad-like smile. “It seems that hearsay does not do you justice.”

“What do you want with that diamond?” Rick asked abruptly. He always hated people beating around the bush, and to him it looked as though they’d been doing just that for a while. “And you!” He cast a brief look at Ferguson, who looked horror-struck. “Thought you weren’t ‘acting under orders’?”

“I was not,” shouted Ferguson, sounding desperate. It was then that Rick noticed that Jonathan’s glare had not left the Liverpudlian since his boss arrived. “I swear to God, I wasn’t!”

“First things first, Ferguson,” came Grey Guy’s calm, low-pitched voice. “Since you do not already know me, Mr O’Connell, my name is Charles Hamilton, and I am indeed a ‘boss’, Ferguson’s and many others’. We happen to work within a governmental organisation called the Chamber of Horus. That should be enough for you to know.

“Still, Ferguson is speaking the truth: I certainly did not give any order for him to interrogate you, although I did suspect that he would try and reach you anyway. That is why I gave particular orders to the two agents up there for them to contact me whenever he came, if he did.

“As for the Diamond of Ahm Shere… I take it that Ferguson did not have the time to fill you in about that particular subject, did he?”

“Yep, he stopped before the interesting part,” Rick said, keeping his voice even. Ferguson turned a pair of hurt and surprised brown eyes to him. To tell the truth, Rick had not been unsympathetic to the Englishman’s story, but there were some things that needed to be done quick. And he didn’t really feel like apologising to Ferguson.

“Did he now?” There was something mocking written all over Hamilton’s severe face, down to the eye-teeth. “Well, it is true that there is a lot our mutual ‘friend’ doesn’t know about.” He turned away from Rick to Jonathan. “Mr Carnahan, I apologise for not greeting you so far. How do you fare in this simple but homely abode?”

“Not too bad, the accommodation is just top-notch,” Jonathan eventually said, shifting his gaze from Ferguson to his boss. “Except for your coffee, which is just about the most foul-tasting, revolting bloody thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of tasting in my life.”

Rick couldn’t help a grin. His brother-in-law could be very entertaining when he decided to turn on the posh and wield it like a weapon.

Hamilton pursed his lips, and his gaze went even colder, if such a thing was possible, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to Number One and the other guy.

“Mr Baine, Mr Stephens? You can leave us now, gentlemen. Wait for me behind the door, and do not let anyone come out or in unless _I_ give you the order to. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, sir,” answered Number One, aka Baine. To be honest, Rick was rather relieved to have a name for the guy. It was a lot easier to hate someone when you had a name to go with the death threats.

Once they were outside and the door was shut, Hamilton slowly turned to the three of them again, and, looking at each of them in turn, said, “Now, has any of you heard about something called the Night of the Long Knives?”

Such an intensity had just kindled in Hamilton’s dead-looking grey eyes that Rick almost unconsciously racked his brain for an answer to the echo the term had made. And he found it.

“Something that happened in Germany a couple of years ago, right? The papers talked about it.” The memory was hazy, but it definitely rang a bell about some nasty kind of stuff. He even remembered a few caricatures published at the time.

“I think I sort of see what you mean as well,” Jonathan said behind him in a low voice. “Wasn’t it something about purges in the German army and whatnot?”

“Pleasure to see you read the press so carefully,” said Hamilton sarcastically. “It did have something to do with Germany, in this you are both correct. However, I do not suppose that the words ‘Sturm Abteilung’ mean anything to you. Am I mistaken?”

Rick couldn’t help but exchange a puzzled glance with Jonathan and Ferguson, who both glanced back, looking equally lost. Where was all of this leading to?

“I might have known. Well, gentlemen, know then that Adolf Hitler did not come to power all by himself. He had help, as all leaders do. In his case, there were faithful followers who had been behind him as early as the mid-Twenties, and who had been organised into a sort of alternate army, or militia, if you will.

“Now, three years ago, decisions were made to remove the SA, as they were called for short, from the scene. As it turns out, they were starting to be a nuisance rather than a support to Hitler: although most were still faithful to him, they had quite a bad reputation among the German people, and the German people’s unquestioning faith in their Führer is paramount to Hitler. Furthermore, there were whispers of discontent among the SA themselves that their Führer had forgotten whom he owned his very power as the Chancellor to in the first place.

“These kinds of whispers came completely expected, even hoped-for. Three years ago, on the pretence of quelling a plot, Hitler secretly sentenced leaders of the Sturm Abteilung to be massively eliminated.”

_Jeez_. Rick still couldn’t for the life of him see the point that Hamilton guy intended to make, but the whole business definitely smelled foul. Glancing at the two other Englishmen, he could see that, while Ferguson’s brown eyes were narrowing, Jonathan’s blue eyes had gone rounder.

“Oh, I remember,” he said. “That’s right, it was in the papers, made quite a scandal at the time –”

“My, what a memory the public has.” Hamilton rolled his eyes. “In any case, what the papers did not print was that the actual number of ‘victims’ was not sixty-one, as the Nazi government stated, but over four hundreds, maybe a thousand.”

“A thousand!?” Rick was barely aware of his mouth falling slightly open. He goggled at Hamilton for a little while, long enough for the thought to really sink in. A thousand people killed just for the sake of a reputation, without trial, without anything? Even the guy from Kafka’s story had had a trial, if a phony one.

He remembered what Cazenave had told him, back in the Legion, about executions of rebels in the army in ’17. How they had been court-martialled and shot to show the others how the officers dealt with ‘traitors’. Rick remembered the grim expression in the Frenchman’s eyes as he told him that the actual number of victims of such ‘operations’ was surely much bigger than what he had heard.

But here… The huge number made things suddenly look huge. Four hundreds at _least_. _Shit_.

“Yes, gentlemen,” said Hamilton, and there was something sinister in his not-smile as he looked at the three of them. “Sort of boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Of course, I was not supposed to know this fact. It took some personal investigation for me to find out. But you see, I had motivations.” There he stopped, and continued in a flat tone, totally devoid of emotion, “One of my second cousins… ‘disappeared’ at the time.”

Rick, Jonathan, and Ferguson looked at each other.

“Allow me to display a few details of my family history. Kurt – the cousin I am talking about – came from the German side of the family, and had lived all his life in the country his mother was born in. As it turns out, he became infatuated with Hitler’s idea of a new Germany, and climbed step by step the ladder to higher ranks of the SA. I think he was the equivalent of our rank of sergeant when the Night of the Long Knives came to pass.

“As the German government gave our family no account whatsoever of what had befallen Kurt, I decided to do research on my own. My rank in the Chamber of Horus proved quite useful when I discovered the Germans’ – and more specifically Hitler’s – interest in the occult, and soon enough I had a contact of my own in the Nazi government.”

“You don’t mean you traded pieces of information about our treasures for information about your cousin!?” Ferguson asked, sounding thoroughly shocked. Hamilton didn’t even look at him.

“Quiet, Ferguson. I did not do research on my cousin only. When I discovered that they had had him executed, I did not broach the subject anymore and concentrated instead on the Nazis’ plans. My contact was – rather stupidly, I have to say – glad to give me details on what they were going to do to Europe and Britain in particular. No need to say that I had him done away with as soon as he became too dangerous.”

“Aren’t you afraid a cousin of his will investigate _his_ death?” said Rick, sarcastic.

“Very funny. In any case, what I learned then is the reason of your presence here.”

“Could you by any chance be more precise?” Jonathan asked.

“I could.” The Englishman’s voice, from low and chilly, turned downright creepy at this point. “Gentlemen, something terrible is about to happen at the hands of the Nazis. I do not know when, but someday, soon, that black order will sweep over Europe, a denial of all the values of Christianity, and the world as we know it will be over.”

Despite the fact that this had to be one of the most ridiculous ideas he had ever heard, Rick couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled by the guy’s flat, dead serious tone, and the total lack of light in his cold grey eyes. Besides, he had some experience now with announced apocalypses.

“That’s what your ‘contact’ told you?” Rick said, not wanting this creep to think he believed this load of bullshit for one second. “Could’ve picked something more original. We’re kinda used to ‘the end of the world as we know it’, ya know.”

He had the small satisfaction of hearing a quiet chuckle coming from behind him. At least his brother-in-law’s sense of humour appeared to be intact.

Hamilton glanced at him with a look of intense disgust, to which Rick replied with a fake grin.

“Oh,” Hamilton said, gritting his teeth, “because you have witnessed Imhotep’s rising twice, you think you are prepared for everything? You fools, I am not talking about science-fiction mummies waking up from the dead!”

“Because what happened at Hamunaptra and Ahm Shere is science-fiction now, is it?” Jonathan exclaimed before Rick could say anything. “Not sure that those who died back there would agree with you, old chap.” There was genuine anger in his eyes, and something in his voice quivered as he finished his sentence. Rick didn’t even have to look at him to know that the both of them were thinking about the same person who had ‘died’ back there.

Ferguson looked at his old friend with an odd expression in his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he was thinking about the same thing.

“What I meant to say –” Hamilton’s voice grew louder “– was that Imhotep is nothing compared to what Adolf Hitler plans to do. He was an evil, yes, but an evil of another age – Hitler is, or will be, _the_ evil of our age. Has none of you read _Mein Kampf_? Do you not understand that he will do – and is in fact doing – exactly as he says? If he can order hundreds of his own supporters killed, what will stop him from killing thousands?”

Despite what Evy liked to call his ‘matter-of-fact’ nature, which undoubtedly referred to his habit of believing only what he could see with his own eyes, Rick was starting to get a bit uneasy. This guy seemed deadly serious. And what was more, he did sound like he completely believed what he was saying. But…

“I still have a question. What does all this have to do with us?”

Hamilton’s lips curled in a sort of smile. “Nothing – and everything. In fact, the real point of your being here is Ahm Shere.”

“Ahm Shere?!” _What the –_

“Thought it was supposed to be science-fiction,” Jonathan piped in, his eyes narrowed like each time he was thinking hard and fast. Usually it was when he was trying to come up with an escape plan – and the person he was trying to escape from was usually Evy.

“You know, Mr Carnahan –” Hamilton turned for a second to him with something that looked like sarcasm in his eyes, otherwise seemingly devoid of any expression, “– you really are sounding like somebody who would like to pass for a complete idiot. I’m going to assume that you are not one and resume my explanation.”

“You do that, old boy, while I send for my duelling pistols.”

Rick glanced at Jonathan. The man still looked a little bit pale, but a little pissed as well. But then maybe this had something to do with the fact that he didn’t have a gun pointed at him this time.

“So very droll,” Hamilton said flatly. “Now, where was I?”

“Ahm Shere,” replied a chorus of three voices, one American and the other two English.

Hamilton cast a withering glance at Ferguson. The Englishman winced.

“When you are quite finished with this childish behaviour, perhaps I might tell you the exact reason why you betrayed your former school friend, Ferguson,” he said in a voice that made Rick very glad he wasn’t in Ferguson’s shoes right now. “Now, Ahm Shere.

“I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated with this legend. The oasis lost in the great desert… The pyramid in the middle of the luxuriant, but deadly wild forest… And the fact that this pyramid was said to be made of gold undoubtedly had its attraction. But to tell the truth, all these legendary tales weren’t really the focus of my attention. What I was most interested in, ever since the very beginning, was the Army of Anubis.”

_Funny_, Rick mused. _Archaeologists never seem to dream about normal stuff. My own wife dreams about old, dusty, decaying books and all this guy can think about is an old, decaying army – which, incidentally, doesn’t exist anymore._

“Well, too bad for you,” came Jonathan’s voice. “Place’s closed. Last time I heard, the Army was gone.”

“If you would be so kind as to not interrupting me for trifles like this,” Hamilton said icily, “I would greatly appreciate it. If the three of you were a little more aware of Egyptian history, then you would know the full story of Ahm Shere.”

“What, you mean about the Scorpion King, how he sold his soul to Anubis so that he could have his own big bad army to kick his opponents’ collective ass, was then sucked into the pyramid, how Hafez and his pals woke Imhotep up two years ago so that he could kick the Scorpion King’s ass, so that his army would be his?” Rick had said that quickly, without even stopping to breathe. Hamilton looked at him, one grey eyebrow raised in obvious disdain.

“A_me_ricans.”

“Watch it, you,” Jonathan snapped. This made Rick blink in surprise, then smile just a bit.

“Your depiction is more or less accurate, Mr O’Connell,” Hamilton admitted. “The Army of Anubis was bestowed upon the Scorpion King as a gift, a token of his alliance with the jackal-god. It logically disappeared in the blink of an eye when you killed the Scorpion King with the Sceptre of Osiris. I wouldn’t be mistaken if I was to say this is all you know, would I? However, it is not the entire truth.”

“What d’you mean, ‘not the entire truth’?” Rick asked, frowning. “I did kill the Scorpion King!”

“Oh yes, you undoubtedly did,” Hamilton said derisively. “However, this ‘truth’ has more to do with the Army of Anubis than with the Scorpion King. Know this, gentlemen: though Mathayus is dead, the army that used to be his remains, buried deep under the sand that now covers Ahm Shere.”

“Wait,” Rick interrupted, taken aback by the enormity of the news, “this means that these freakish jackal-headed things aren’t gone?! And who the hell is this Mathayus?”

“Mathayus was the name of the Scorpion King, when he was still human,” Ferguson said quietly. Rick almost started. He had all but forgotten the guy was there at all.

“Thanks,” he said quickly, rather reluctantly, before turning back to Hamilton, “But I thought – hell, _we_ all thought that once the Scorpion King was dead, his army was sent back to the Underworld?”

“It _is_ true, in a way,” Hamilton explained, with the tiniest touch of patience in his voice. “But then, you surely remember that the Creature Imhotep intended to kill the Scorpion King to take command of the Army of Anubis?”

“Sure, we’re not likely to forget that, are we?” Jonathan chimed in.

“Then you will see it makes sense. I presume that Mr O’Connell here did not kill the Scorpion King in order to own his army, did he?”

Rick shrugged wordlessly, having to admit it.

“By killing Mathayus, you have stopped his army – for a while. But what you don’t seem to be aware of is that the pact he made with Anubis demanded that he’d be worthy of him. By allowing you to kill him, he proved unworthy of the god’s trust, and so from this moment the Army was out of his hands.”

“Okay, I get it. Whoever killed the Scorpion King proved his worth, and got the Army of Anubis as a reward afterwards, right?” Despite the fact that it sounded rather far-fetched, Rick had to admit that it did make sense, in a twisted sort of way. But how come Ardeth hadn’t told them about it?

Maybe the Medjai just didn’t know. The thought came in the form of a nasty pang as Rick realised he’d always expected them – and especially Ardeth – to know just about everything that went on in Egypt. Well, it was their job, in a way; they always did seem to lurk in the background, conveniently taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of.

But they were human beings. There must be _one_ thing they didn’t know. Like what would happen to Alex if he didn’t take off the Bracelet of Anubis before seven days had passed.

Too bad it turned out to be this kind of small details.

“Precisely, although I would certainly not put it this way.” Hamilton sounded almost pleased to have such a keen audience. “It is written that the Army of Anubis shall come to whoever claims it after Anubis’ servant proves unworthy. And it just so happens that, when the moon sets on the morning of June 30th – that’s next Thursday, as you may have guessed, and the new moon of this month – the Egyptian year changes. We will enter the Year of the Jackal – the year Anubis is most celebrated. And, supposedly, the year when he is at his most powerful.”

“And what does all this stuff have to do with Hitler?” Jonathan asked. Hamilton got a funny look in his eyes at that. This look struck a bell in Rick, who remembered it from somewhere, though he couldn’t place it.

“Have you heard nothing of what I said?” the older Englishman said, his grey eyes suddenly ablaze. “Is it so hard to put two and two together – can you not see what I’m getting at? Hitler has the power to do more harm to humanity than Imhotep and the Scorpion King themselves could ever dream of – and what’s more, he is planning to _use_ this power!”

Rick’s jaw dropped in spite of him. He’d just understood. “Jeez Louise… You’re gonna send the Army of Anubis in Germany to kill Hitler and –”

“– And wipe out Germany in the process!?” Jonathan’s face had turned very white very quickly. He looked as though he’d just been punched in the stomach, reflecting what Rick himself felt.

“I would say something along these lines, yes,” Hamilton answered calmly. “The world can only be safe when every single one of his followers are dead.”

To say the silence that fell in the room was heavy would have been a hell of an understatement. Rick’s eyes remained fixed on Hamilton’s steady, expressionless gaze, his square face, his clean black suit, unable to keep himself from wondering at the strange turns situations tended to get as soon as they and Egypt were involved. Maybe – like what he knew about America – the country just tended to attract nutcases.

“Look, buddy…” he finally said hesitatingly, after a long intake of breath. “You can’t use a… some kind of weapon of mass destruction on an entire country because of what its government or its leader might do. What about anyone who disagrees with the guy? They’ll just be obliterated with the rest!”

“Collateral damage is inevitable. It’s a risk I’m prepared to take.”

Rick’s mouth fell open, and a thought crossed his brain like lightning.

The thing about the French Foreign Legion was that it attracted all sorts from all kinds of different countries, and for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they remained secret, sometimes the soldiers shared them; nobody ever asked. Pavel had shared his one night. That was when Rick had heard the word ‘pogrom’ for the first time.

“_You see, prijátelʹ2,_” he had told Rick one evening, “_there are places when one day, someone will shout ‘Kill the Jews! Kill all the Jews!’. And because they think killing Jews is solution to all problems, Jews will die. Like my wife die. My father. The mother of my father. My little boy. Problem remain, and one day, someone else shout ‘Kill the Jews!’ And reznjá – cutting, killing – starts again_.”

There was nothing Rick could say to that, even if he had wanted. He took a long gulp from the flask of dubious alcohol Beni had procured somewhere, then wordlessly handed it to Pavel. Pavel had only sipped a bit before staring at him with eyes that looked like bottomless wells.

“_Sometimes, place is in people’s head. You watch out for these people, O’Connell. These people, in charge? Danger, and not just for Jews._”

Rick had remembered that conversation more and more clearly for the past half-dozen years. It was very easy to forget that the outside world existed when you were on a dig with your gorgeous, loving wife, unearthing timeless artefacts to her unending enthusiasm. It was even easier when the dig ended up involving swallowing half your volume in Nile water, pursuing your son’s kidnappers halfway across the desert, and seeing your gorgeous, loving wife murdered before your eyes and come back with someone else’s memories on top of the usual ones. But some things he paid attention to.

“You know,” he said slowly, “there’s a lot of German people who would live a lot better if it wasn’t for Hitler. I mean, they’d probably be happy if you had him assassinated. And you’re really planning on letting them be ‘collateral damage’!? What’d _they_ do to you?”

“Not to mention,” came Jonathan’s unsteady voice from behind him, “it’s not even that certain that Anubis’ army will obey you, is it? Do you really think they’ll care to stay within the borders of Germany?”

“What are you talking about? Of course it will obey me – it obeys the one who claims it, the legend is quite clear about that!” snapped Hamilton. Rick rolled his eyes.

“I admit this is not the right place in the world to say that, but – Christ, you mustn’t always take this kind of fairy tales and hokum at face value!”

“He’s right.” Jonathan’s voice sounded a bit firmer. “Take Ahm Shere: the pyramid was supposed to be made of solid gold and everything. Well, I’ve seen the bloody thing close, and I can tell you, it’s _not_ gold. Not on the outside, anyway.”

In other circumstances, Rick would have snorted. That reality had not matched legend on this particular point had been a sore point for his brother-in-law.

But Hamilton looked dead set. He could have been deaf to what they had said, for all his expression changed. “Don’t waste time and breath,” he said coldly. “You will not make me change my mind. I’ll let you know that you have no choice – you haven’t had any choice ever since you were asked to take the Diamond to England.”

_Oh, crap!_ “What d’you mean? When was this stunt set up?”

“Quite some time ago, actually,” Hamilton answered, his voice dangerously low. “It began when you, Mr Carnahan, sold the Diamond of Ahm Shere to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. But I believe it was truly set in motion when Italy finished invading Ethiopia, only a few months after the events of Ahm Shere. However, if you speak of my projects, you may as well know that they are my own. No orders were given to me. I took the initiative in retrieving the Diamond – which shall be needed in time – and bringing you here.”

“I’d still like to know what this has to do with us,” Rick mumbled, still trying to remember where he had seen something like the funny look in Hamilton’s eyes.

“Quite simple, in fact. You, Mr O’Connell, are the one who killed the Scorpion King, so we figured it would be a good thing to have you on hand when I claim his army, if only to make sure you don’t end up with it. Now, as for Mr Carnahan… Let’s just say that as someone who entered and got out of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere, you are what I could familiarly call an added bonus.”

“Goodness me, I’m flattered,” said Jonathan, sarcastic. “Now, there’s something I’d like to know. Why did you pick me and not somebody useful like my sister? _She_’s the real specialist, you know.”

“Beside the fact that, through Ferguson here, you were the one who led us to the Diamond of Ahm Shere? Well, I imagine that you just were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jonathan looked down at his shoes, his hands in his pockets. “Yes… Well. Story of my life, really.”

Something suddenly clicked into place out of nowhere in Rick’s mind. That _look_. Hamilton’s. That curator guy – Hafez or something – had had the same back in the pyramid, when Rick had walked past him on his way to murdering the bitch who had killed his wife and that bastard Imhotep. The curator had his hand stuck in the statue of a scorpion at that moment, and there had been triumph and something else, something wild in his eyes, so utterly convinced he was that his ‘Lord Imhotep’ would ‘take command’.

Rick suddenly felt sick. Hamilton was just as utterly convinced that he would be doing the right thing in murdering thousands, tens of thousands of people, innocent or not. Anubis’ Army aside, the sheer thought of someone capable of thinking like that was scary. No, not scary. It was terrifying.

Hamilton looked at them and said, ever so polite, “Well, gentlemen, it has been a pleasure talking with you, but there is some business I must take care of. Good afternoon, and be sure we will be seeing one another in the near future.”

He walked over to the door, with a brief glance at Ferguson who dithered, his brown eyes shifting from Jonathan to Rick, his broad face looking a little green around the edges. “Well, Ferguson! Should I lock you up here as well?”

“N—no sir, I’m comin’,” the Englishman stammered in a strained voice. He walked out first, without looking back.

As Hamilton crossed the threshold, Rick, unable to stop himself, said hotly, “What makes you think we’re gonna let you do that? There are people out there whose only job is to protect the world from creeps like you, and I really don’t wanna be in your shoes when my wife gets to you.”

Hamilton let out a low chuckle.

“And what makes you think I’m going to allow myself to be stopped?”

* * *

1Giving white feathers to men of fighting age not wearing uniforms on British soil during WW1 was a thing. It was supposed to call them cowards in front of everybody and shame them into enlisting. Naturally – beside the obvious – it had all sorts of unexpected downsides, and quite a few young veterans with honourable discharges and wounds that weren’t obvious received white feathers and were understandably pissed off about it. Plus all the men who couldn’t enlist because they had disabilities or jobs that just couldn't do without them.

2(прия́тель): Friend, mate, buddy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, the scene where Hamilton explains his plan and his motivations was a big source of stress for me. I’ve wanted to rewrite it – or parts of – for years, because I wanted to make it clear that he _had_ to be stopped (because 1] his plan is basically “wipe out Germany to stop Nazis” and 2] it’s a bad idea to mess with dark magic anyway since you never know whether you’ll really be its master or not), but also that _hell yes_ Nazis are the worst, and the fewer of them the better. Hopefully I succeeded.


	10. Different Kinds of Apparitions

Alex O’Connell usually got up pretty early in the morning. There was always something interesting to do, even – especially – on Sundays, when he was the first awake. For instance, grabbing a stool to try and nick some interesting books from the library, those he was forbidden to read, of course. So far, he’d fallen across a number of books about how to make mummies (see Picture n°3 for details), something about medicine and anatomy that left him wondering certain things for a few weeks before he awkwardly brought it up – and hadn’t _that_ been an interesting conversation – plus a couple of novels about folks doing mushy or yucky stuff with no shirts on. Those had been by far the least interesting. They weren’t even any properly funny bits.

Right now, as he slowly became aware of sounds and things surrounding him, his eyelids still stuck shut by sleep, Alex wasn’t in any kind of hurry to wake up. He was curled up in his bed, breathing deeply, and he felt rather good about it. Now he understood what so many people liked about lie-ins.

It was pretty hot inside the room, he realised as he brushed his fringe, plastered on his forehead by sweat, from his eyes. He didn’t know what time it was, but it seemed that the worst of the afternoon heat had passed; it was dark too, as he noticed, even through his closed eyelids. His mum must have closed the shutters when she had put him to bed last night. Or morning.

Now there was a good question. When had the conversation finished last night? Alex swore inwardly, cursing himself for not staying awake to hear the rest of the conversation. Maybe he hadn’t heard it, but they had actually found a solution. Heck, knowing Ardeth and the Medjai in general, maybe they’d already set up some sort of miracle plan to get his dad and uncle out of whatever place those strange guys had taken them to.

Alex’s eyes popped open as if of their own accord. Maybe his dad was already here. Maybe if he went over to his parents’ room, he’d find his mum and dad sleeping in each other’s arms. Maybe Uncle Jon would then stumble out of his own room, yawning and scratching his neck, walking with his eyes closed and bumping into the furniture until he fixed himself some tea. And he and Alex would grouse in chorus because, as usual, Mum and Dad would hug and kiss and stuff.

For a second, this wild hope turned Alex’s heart upside down, and he sat up quickly, almost expecting all of this to happen. A half-second later, he started when he saw Ardeth Bay sitting on a chair on the other side of the room. The hope that had flared for a second in his chest died down, leaving the boy with a knot in his stomach.

“Good, you’re awake. I thought that you might wake up before your mother.”

Alex made a quick mental note to never laugh at Uncle Jon again when Ardeth startled him by appearing out of the blue, and asked, a bit puzzled, “What’re you doing here?”

Ardeth actually gave a grin. Discreet, but a real one. “This question seems to come back a lot where I’m concerned.”

“Yeah…” Alex ran a hand through his hair. His neck was soaked. “I s’ppose. Sorry.”

“Do not be. I came here to bring some news. And bring back the letter to your mother.”

“What letter?”

“When your mother came home this morning, she found a letter from the men who have taken your father and your uncle. But it is nothing of great importance.”

‘_Nothing of great importance_’_?_ It _was_ important if it was from the kidnappers! “What’d it say?”

Ardeth looked at him seriously. “It only meant to frighten your mother. But I highly doubt that she would be frightened so easily.”

_Yep, he’s got a point there_. “Mum?” Alex gave a broad grin. “She’s afraid of nothing.”

“Don’t you think that’s giving me a little too much credit?” came a soft voice by the door. Alex hadn’t even heard his mum enter the room.

She came to sit on his bed and ran a gentle hand through his hair, smiling. And he let her, because even if it was a tad embarrassing to have his mum fuss over him in front of people, well… she was his mum. And, come to think of it, Ardeth wasn’t ‘people’. Ardeth was Ardeth, almost a second uncle.

“How are you, Evelyn?” Ardeth asked. She rubbed the back of her neck and blinked a couple of times.

“I’m fine, thank you.” She did look tired, though, Alex thought, looking at the shadows under her eyes. “Do you have news? What did you make of that letter? And why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

“Well,” Ardeth said slowly, but firmly, “you needed rest. That as much was obvious. As for the letter…” He stopped and dug the aforementioned letter from a pocket in his robes and handed it to Evelyn. “… There it is. It only proves what we talked about last night – yesterday’s kidnapping has something to do with the Diamond of Ahm Shere. All this letter tells you to do is to wait until they are returned – no ransom demand, no clear instructions at all. According to what I know of kidnappings, this one seems very peculiar.”

It sure did. In every film Alex had seen so far, when people – usually pretty blonde girls – got kidnapped, their kidnappers asked for a nice big ransom. Of course, they never could get it, because the fearless dashing hero always managed to save the girl in time.

Watching movies in theatres was both less and more fun than when the adventure stuff happened to you and your family.

Mum nodded, not looking at anything in particular; then her eyes swiftly shifted back to Ardeth. “So, do you have any news?”

A slight smile slowly made its way across Ardeth’s face. “Yes,” he said. “That’s why I came here. I’ve just heard – word of mouth, again – that Tom Ferguson has been sighted in the village of Nazlet El Samman, near Giza.”

Evelyn’s eyes went rounder. “Then what are we waiting for? If someone can give us any answers, this man can – and now we know where he is!”

Alex jumped quickly out of bed and began looking for his clothes. “Comin’ in a tick!” He was grateful to see his mum and Ardeth going out of the room, no doubt to give him a little more privacy. Or rather, he was grateful that Ardeth walked over to the door and stepped aside to let Mum out; she would surely have wanted to help Alex get dressed, and he was just too old for this sort of thing. He could dress perfectly on his own.

When he ran into the living room to join them, dishevelled, shirttails hanging out of his trousers, and all but dragging his jacket on the floor, they were waiting for him. He only had time to wonder how his mum had managed to change clothes so quickly when there was a knock on the door.

Ardeth turned to Evelyn. “Are you expecting someone?”

“No,” she answered, sounding unsure. She glanced into the bag she was carrying, and Alex saw with surprise – mingled with not a little bit of excitement – that she had brought a small number of Dad’s guns. Had he missed something? Were they going to fight?

She walked carefully to the door, and opened it in a swift gesture.

Alex’s mouth fell open.

On the threshold stood the most extraordinary old man he’d ever seen – and this was saying a lot. He was very lean, but quite tall, and almost seemed to be blocking the light of sunset that came behind him. He wore long black robes embroidered with thin gold thread, a white turban and a long, light white scarf, one end of which fell down on his chest. The long white beard made stark contrast against the bronzed colour of his face, his cheekbones were high and his nose was long and thin; it was probably his eyes, though, that stood out most. Slanted and black, they seemed to be thousands of years old, with the wisdom that came with long life that Alex had seen when he had met some of the older Medjai. Those eyes made him feel like some sort of ghost from Ancient Egypt was staring at him, hidden in the envelope of a stately old Egyptian man.

“Good evening,” the apparition said in a low, deep voice. “Are you Dr Evelyn O’Connell?”

Realising he was gawping at the newcomer – and probably not looking particularly smart in the process – Alex shut his mouth and looked at his mum. Evelyn blinked, an astonished expression on her face, then gave a nod, her eyes not leaving the old man’s face.

“Y—yes, I am,” she said at last, gradually regaining her usual assurance. “What… I’m sorry – who are you?”

A small smile – it looked like one to Alex, anyway – stretched the strange man’s thin lips, and he gave a slight bow. “I am Sheikh Sadek al-Nazar, and I dwell at Nazlet El Samman, near Giza. However, I have other, higher duties.”

Glancing at Ardeth, Alex thought he saw something like recognition flash in his eyes.

“Indeed, if I am here to speak with you, it is not as a Sheikh, but as the High Priest of Osiris.”

_Right. _Curiouser and curiouser, like it said in that book. The whole thing was becoming wilder by the second.

To Alex’s relative relief, his mum looked just as nonplussed as he felt. After a few seconds, though, she stepped aside to let the stranger in.

“I thank you,” he said, in that extraordinarily deep voice of his. “You must be Commander Bay,” he added, turning to Ardeth, who bowed respectfully. “I have heard of your deeds and those of your people. You deserve great praise.”

“I did nothing,” Ardeth said slowly, “but lead a courageous and honourable people to battle while four persons I am honoured to call my friends –” and there was something in his eyes that smiled as he glanced very briefly at Evelyn and Alex “– held the fate of the world in their hands. The Scorpion King was vanquished thanks to them, not us.”

“Really?” Something like a smile twinkled in the dark slanted eyes. “Well, seldom have I seen a Commander so humble. If the nobility of your soul equals your modesty, then the Medjai people is fortunate to have you as their Commander, young Ardeth Bay.”

For a half-second – a quarter, really – Alex thought he saw more colour on Ardeth’s cheeks. Maybe it was just an illusion, because the next second, he looked his usual calm, mysterious self. Still, despite the seriousness of the situation, Alex couldn’t completely suppress a snort at the thought of Ardeth Bay blushing.

The Sheikh glanced swiftly in his direction, and suddenly the boy felt his own cheeks grow distinctly hot. _Darn it._

But Sheikh al-Nazar didn’t say anything. Instead he turned to look at Evelyn, who said quickly, “I’m sorry if I sound rude, but – what is the reason of your presence here? Why did you come all the way from Giza to my house?”

“You are not rude at all, Dr O’Connell. In fact, if someone here was forgetting their manners, it would be me.” He spoke an elegant, flowing English, with hardly any trace of accent, although it did sound as if a textbook was speaking instead of an actual person. Kind of like Ardeth, actually, minus the accent. “You were about to go outside, I see.”

Alex saw the dark eyes dart from the jacket he still clutched in his hand to his mum’s shoes. _Elementary, my dear Watson_.

“Yes, in fact we were,” said Evelyn, sounding a bit desperate. “My husband and my brother have been gone for twenty-four hours now, and we’re looking for a man who might know something about their disappearance – we’ve heard that he was in Nazlet El Samman a little while ago, perhaps you –”

“Calm yourself, Dr O’Connell,” Sheikh al-Nazar said slowly. “If you are speaking of Thomas Ferguson, it was he who sent me to you.”

Alex’s jaw hit the floor for the second time in ten minutes, and it wasn’t the only one to do so. The next thing he felt was a hot surge of anger, one not unlike what had coursed through him when he had heard that Ferguson had been a traitor all along. Oh, he wasn’t going to fall for stuff like that twice.

“You’re with _them_, aren’t you?” he shouted, making his mother jump slightly. “You’re with those who took them! You –”

“_Alex!_” Evelyn and Ardeth had both spoken sharply, almost snapped, and while it didn’t make his anger die down, it sure as hell surprised him enough to calm down a bit. Especially considering the double bright glare that went with the words. It was hard to tell whose eyes were flashing hardest.

When there was something in your Mum’s eyes that was not unlike the look the most powerful Medjai Alex knew got in his eyes when he was genuinely furious, you knew you’d got yourself into trouble. Big time.

“Right,” he mumbled in the end, sobered up quite a bit. Through his blond fringe he looked up at the Sheikh. “Sorry.”

The Sheikh’s eyes looked sterner than his voice sounded when he said, “I understand your tongue ran quicker than your thoughts, young master O’Connell. From the information I could gather about all this, your reaction is understandable.”

While he turned to Evelyn and exchanged a few words with her, Ardeth slipped quietly to Alex’s side and whispered, “What you must understand, Alexander, is that this man is in his own way more powerful than any king or emperor – he is the last High Priest of Osiris, the Keeper of the Dead, and although he may not appear so, he knows things and can do things that are beyond imagination. And he is very, very old.”

Something in his words struck a chord in Alex. “W–wait – Priest of Osiris? You mean, like Imhotep?”

Ardeth looked a tad uneasy, but he nodded. “Yes, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named fulfilled this duty before he became the Creature. He was the second most powerful man in Egypt, right after Pharaoh, as has every High Priest been before and since. Sadek al-Nazar has inherited the powers and the knowledge of five thousand years. Some even say he was gifted with long life – something I tend to agree with, since both my grandfather and my great-grandfather knew him as he is.”

_Whoa…_ Alex made a mental count, and his eyes widened. “Jeez! He’s not _that_ old, is he?”

“He is,” Ardeth said with a slight smile. “So, as your mother would say if she was listening to us right now, mind your manners when you address him. Not necessarily, as Fahad said yesterday, because you ought to ‘keep quiet whilst the elders speak’, but simply out of respect for a man wiser than most.”

That was Ardeth for you. One second, he could be all gloom and doom, shoot you down with a single glare, and pull it off thanks to his usual mysterious demeanour; the next, his eyes twinkled, a smile was playing at the corner of his mouth, and you knew nothing bad would happen to you. “Right,” Alex said with a grin. “Well, I’m glad I did apologise. Could’ve turned nasty for me otherwise, couldn’t it?”

“You overreacted because you were driven by anger and concern. I can tell you that having known your family for eleven years I’m not unfamiliar with such a reaction.” Ardeth shook his head. “You truly are your father’s son in many ways,” he added with a real, fully-fledged grin.

Alex grinned back, his chest swelling with pride. The last person who had said that to him had been Imhotep, so it was quite a nice change to hear it coming from Ardeth Bay.

On the other hand… Alex remembered his dad’s reaction when Mum had been kidnapped by Lock-Nah and his men – lashing out at Ardeth as if he was the one who’d brought the guys in red to their house and slamming him against that statue. Oh sure, as Alex understood it, he’d more or less apologised afterwards, but it was also true that Rick never seemed to be really comfortable whenever Ardeth was around. Each time, for the first few seconds anyway, he seemed to be expecting some sort of catastrophe that would eventually lead to the kidnapping of a member of the family, and, incidentally, to the end of the world. _Guess you can call that overreacting._

That said, ever since Ahm Shere, Dad had seemed to make an effort not to ‘overreact’ anymore when Ardeth dropped by to say hello when they went to some dig site or other in Egypt – probably, Alex thought, thanks to Mum, who had chided his Dad for being so ridiculously superstitious. The little he’d been able to see of Dad’s face from the staircase he was hiding in when she had told him that had been hilarious.

So the comment was both a praise and a dig. Knowing Ardeth, he should have known.

Alex gave a crooked grin, and the Medjai leader laid a hand on his shoulder briefly before turning to Mum and the Sheikh.

And from what he picked up of the conversation, it was _very_ interesting. Not to mention scary as hell.

* * *

Tom Ferguson was back in his small office. After he absent-mindedly finished writing the report he’d abandoned earlier to go and see Jon and O’Connell, he had leant back in his chair, put his feet on his desk, and stared at the ceiling where a fan turned round and round, supposedly to bring some air in the sultry room. The bloody fan had been turning for something like three hours now, and been failing its purpose completely.

He felt sick to the stomach. Literally. And not because of the spinning fan.

He never would, in all the world, have guessed the extent of Hamilton’s ‘projects’. Even if he did have an inkling about why they had taken the diamond and its former owners in the first place – the idea being that the diamond somehow allowed entrance into the Pyramid of Ahm Shere – he had to admit to himself that he had had no clue as to what they would do once inside the pyramid, until the conversation in the basement of a house in Giza a few hours ago.

He would never have guessed that Hamilton wanted to use a legendary army to destroy a whole _nation of people_!

_Jesus._

The fan turned and turned on the ceiling, but it didn’t come even close to the speed Tom’s mind was spinning. The last time he had felt so sick was in the Diamond’s chamber in the Museum, when Baine and his guys had burst in through the door; he’d whirled round just in time to see Jon crumple lifelessly to the floor, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, and Baine standing above him with a smug smile on his grim face, still gripping his gun by the barrel. At that moment, Tom had felt a violent desire to take the sceptre thing Jon had held in his hands and bash Baine’s head with all his might. But he had controlled himself – with an effort – and yelled at Baine, “_What’d you do to him!? You just had to stun him, that’s all!_”

“_I did stun him, Ferguson,_” Baine had said, perfectly calm, and Tom fought back once more the desire to strangle him. “_I just did what I was told._”

“That_ en’t called stunning, you idiot,_” Tom had retorted sharply. “_You nearly smashed his head in, for Pete’s sake!_” He walked over to Jon, ignoring the movement in the back of the room indicating that the diamond was being placed in some sort of basket, all the while glaring at his fellow agent_. _“_If he’s dead, then so help me…_”

Baine had looked at him with disdain as he put two fingers on his friend’s neck and couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief. Of course Jon wasn’t dead. Baine could be a pain in the arse and a downright bastard, but he obeyed orders. But Tom never trusted him. Some other agents he trusted, some even were good friends, but Gabriel Baine… Well, maybe it was the way he seemed to enjoy missions like this one a little too much.

He had stood up and looked around the room, to meet with the gaze of the young assistant, Jamal Hassan. The boy looked at him sadly for a few seconds, then followed the other agents in charge of the diamond up a rope ladder to the broken window and outside.

Tom turned back to Baine, who kept smirking at him. “_What’re you lookin’ at?_”

Baine’s smirk widened. “_Oh, just wondering how it felt to betray someone who thought of you as a friend. The two of you were mates once, right?_”

Tom’s eyes flickered down to Jon’s still body for a second, then back up to Baine. “_That’s right, you wouldn’t know, would you,_” he’d said coldly. “_You’d need actual friends to betray._”

Baine’s smirk slipped off and turned into a glare. It had been on this small victory that Tom had allowed another fellow agent to knock him on the head, and his last conscious thought was relief that it hadn’t been Baine.

The fan kept turning, but although Tom’s eyes were still fixed on it, it wasn’t what he was really seeing. Instead, he was picturing an army of jackal-like soldiers devastating countries, slaughtering the inhabitants, and sweeping across the world like dark waves with nothing to stop them. Because Jon did have a point. If the army existed, the god Anubis would be the only one to truly control it, and Hamilton was an established crackpot.

Not that he wasn’t already. God, for all the time Tom thought he was just a control freak with the proverbial umbrella stuck up his –

The chair gave a nasty crack and Tom almost fell over, arms wheeling in an attempt to regain his balance. It worked, and he sprung out of the chair before it gave away for good – honestly, the quality of the furniture they were stuck with in this place left much to be desired – and began to pace the room absent-mindedly.

He had to think of something, and quick.

Of course, the number of options he had was a tad limited.

He couldn’t go back to Jon and O’Connell now. Hamilton had probably made sure that the two agents would not let him in a second time. And he couldn’t go to see Liz, either, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he worried about her.

Where could he go? To whom? And to say what – that some mad Englishman wanted to raise the mythical Army of Anubis and claim it for his own?

Tom almost kicked in a pile of books in anger, but his respect for the written word and decade-old leather and paper prevented him from actually doing it. Instead, he stopped pacing and took a second look at the books.

The ghost of an idea slowly taking shape in his mind.

He picked up a small volume hidden beneath some bigger ones, brushed the dust away with his sleeve, and grinned broadly when he managed to make out the title: _A History of the Cult of Osiris in Ancient Egypt_.

_Gotcha_. The bones of the idea he’d had looked a bit more solid now.

Feverishly, he leafed through to the index, found what he was looking for, and read.

  
  


> “_Although the Pharaoh was considered a living god on Earth, the head of state _and_ religion, the High Priest of Osiris had many powers as head of one of the most important cults in Egyptian mythology. Aside from him, the priests under his command could only take orders from the Pharaoh in person. As the Keeper of the Dead, he presided over the embalming and burial of those of royal blood, and was in charge of the two legendary books containing all the rituals in Egyptian religion, the Book of the Living and the Book of the Dead._”

  
  


Right, this part he already knew. Tom returned to the index and searched it for something… anything… that might be useful to him right now.

  
  


> “_The High Priesthood was passed on from each dying High Priest to the one he decided was most worthy. No-one knows for sure when exactly the tradition died out. Some say it did during Persian occupation, some others say Greek, others again say Roman, and for some others it disappeared after the Arab conquest of Egypt. A few historians posit that the Priesthood never disappeared, and that there is still a High Priest of Osiris, and that he still has followers, even if they are but a very minor part of the current Egyptian population._”

  
  


Tom’s eyes darted down the page.

  
  


> “_The last known traces of a High Priest of Osiris (see Fisher, E., (1922). _From the New Kingdom to the Hellenistic Period: Late Religious Practices in Ancient Egypt_) go back to the Thirtieth Dynasty and were found near Giza. The necropolis there has stood for millennia as an emblematic place for solar cult[2] and the Great Sphinx, the statue of which stands there, was revered as the sun god Hor-em-akhet in the New Kingdom._”
> 
> _[2] The gods Ra and Horus being central solar deities, and Horus being the son of Osiris, showcases the close connection between the world of the living (Horus, the sun) and the Underworld (Osiris’ realm)._

  
  


His heart now racing madly, Tom put the small book in his pocket and began to rummage about in search of a recent map of Giza. It took him a little while to find one among the mass of files, papers and books lying about, but he finally got his hands on a map of the plateau of Giza and its surroundings.

He all but swept aside the mess on his desk in a swift gesture, and unfolded the map.

The three pyramids – Khafre’s, Menkaure’s, and Khufu’s, the Great Pyramid of Giza – stood in the centre of the map on a diagonal line; the road to Cairo stretched north of the Great Pyramid, east of which was the smallish village of Nazlet El Samman. The Sphinx nearby looked small in comparison with the two bigger pyramids, forming with them an almost perfect right-angle triangle.

Apart from the hotels near the road to Cairo, the only lived-in area was Nazlet El Samman.

Tom Ferguson was not an idiot. He knew perfectly well that, alone, there was nothing he could do to help – but there seemed to be a man whose help he could ask for. Even if this looked like a ridiculously long shot.

Some more research later, Tom was leaving his office, looking carefully round the corners – he didn’t know whether Hamilton was paranoid enough to put a shadow on him, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He discreetly grabbed a bicycle that was lying about and set off with the firm intention of returning it later.

He dismounted once in Nazlet El Samman and headed for the tiny bookshop lost in the midst of similar-looking houses. Abbas, the bookseller, had sometimes got him out of some tight spots, and over the years he had grown a particular fondness for the old man. Also it didn’t hurt that he probably fixed the best damn tea in Giza.

The small shop was still the same – dark, hot, with dust flying in the few rays of sun that blinked each time somebody walked in front of the shutters outside. The afternoon light fell on old shelves crammed with Arabic books of various sizes and shapes, but it was too dim to light up the back of the room. Tom started when a hand drew back the heavy curtain at the door to the back shop, making the small copper coins chink.

“Ah, Tom, my friend.” Although his voice was even more hoarse and rasping than it had been last time Tom had seen him, Abbas unveiled his missing teeth in a broad smile. “Is there something I can do for you? Or perhaps you came in here only to pay me a visit?”

“Such was indeed my intention,” Tom replied in his slightly halting Arabic, returning the grin and following the old bookseller into the back shop where he was offered a glass of steaming _kushari_ tea1, light and slightly sweet. “Thank you. I wanted to ask you how you were – you didn’t look so well the last time we saw each other, and I see that it’s not much better now. Are you ill?”

“Is old age an illness?” asked the old man, looking at Tom with the intent, cryptic gaze the Englishman had always known him to possess. “If so, yes, I am indeed very ill, my friend. Now, what did you _really_ come to see me for?”

Tom looked down at the table and grinned sheepishly. “All right, I’m sorry… I should’ve known. Well, I did come to see you, but I am also looking for someone I need to find, quickly. I do not know his name, though.”

Abbas looked at him curiously. “Is that so? Tell me, then. If I can help you, I will.”

“I know.” Tom nodded and swallowed more of his tea. “Well, I don’t quite know where to begin…”

“I have no need for explanations, my friend. Only tell me whom it is you seek.”

Tom put his glass back on the table, relieved and grateful. “All right, then. What do you know about the High Priest of Osiris?”

Abbas slowly took a sip from his own glass, put it down, and looked at Tom in surprise. “I know not what you are talking about, my friend. Egyptian mythology has not been a living religion for many centuries now.”

He looked quite innocent, with his bright eyes shining out of his dark face, and the white halo of wild thin hair flying around his head. But Tom saw a little colour disappear from his cheeks.

“Come now, Abbas. I know you’re lying. I’m serious – I really have to talk to him! Who is he? And where does he live?”

The old bookseller scrutinised Tom’s face for a while, before saying softly, “You know I’m lying. You must also know why I’m lying. Why do you expect me to tell you the truth when I know that, in lying, I will protect people?”

There was a silence, and Tom answered hesitatingly, just as softly, “Because I’ve been doing some lying too, recently, and it has hurt people. I’d like you to tell me the truth because it might set some things right.”

Another silence followed his words, long enough to make the Englishman begin to wonder if he hadn’t offended Abbas _and_ made a complete fool of himself, when Abbas gave a genuine grin, warm and kind.

“You are a good man, my friend. Very well, I will help you… Wait here for a minute.” He disappeared through the curtain into the shop and came back with a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled a name and an address on it, and handed it to Tom.

Tom quickly memorised what was written, having a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to keep the piece of paper; sure enough, after a few seconds, Abbas took the paper back and put it in the fire above which the kettle had been boiling.

“Now that you have convinced me,” he said, turning from the fire back to Tom, “I hope you realise that, if your motivations are by chance not as honest as I think they are, you will not live to regret it.”

Tom swallowed the last of his tea and gave a smile. “I’m aware of it, my friend. I just want to prevent a catastrophe.”

Abbas accompanied him to the door; once on the threshold, he gave a slight bow, and said in English, “I like you a lot, Tom Ferguson. Take care. And I hope this catastrophe you speak of will not happen.”

Tom returned the bow, and smiled. “_Inshallah2_, my friend. So do I.” He picked up the bicycle and looked at Abbas. “And take good care of yourself as well. I might tell you what did happen, someday.”

_If we’re not all dead by then._

And he pedalled off into the dust and sand, a small lump in his throat, hoping that it would not be the last time he saw the kindly old man.

After turning a few corners, riding down a couple of streets, and scaring a couple of camels, he dismounted in front of a plain-looking house with a green door and wild grasses around the threshold.

Before he even raised his hand to knock on the door, a deep voice came from the inside. “The door is open, stranger. Do come in.”

Tom blinked. The person inside had not spoken Arabic, but perfect English. He slowly pushed the door open and stepped in.

The room was small and square, with walls of red roughcast and elaborate Arabic window frames, and he walked in on a floor of hard-packed earth, with a big carpet in the middle. In the centre of the room was a low wooden table with a handsome oriental kettle. And behind it, in a wooden armchair that did not look so comfortable, sat a very strange old man drinking tea in a small glass.

Something special emanated from him, from his sharp features and keen slanted eyes, and despite the sober outfit he was wearing. This old man sat on his wooden chair like a king on his throne, with the same majesty and poise. As if he had been doing that for all his life. And judging from his looks, ‘all his life’ must be a very long time.

Impressed in spite of himself, Tom walked to the old man and bowed deeply. “Peace be on you, Sheikh.”

Sheikh Sadek al-Nazar gave a polite nod, and put his glass on the table. “And peace be on you as well, Effendi. What do I owe this visit to?”

His deep, low voice sounded like a bell of bronze. Tom realised he had no trouble at all believing that this man was the possessor of the knowledge of Ancient Egypt. He certainly looked – and sounded – the part.

“Well,” he began, feeling the beginning of a sudden hesitation, “my name is Thomas Ferguson, and I came here to ask for help.”

“If your purpose is honest, and your intentions pure, then help you shall find here.”

“But… It is not the help of Sheikh al-Nazar I have come to ask.”

The Sheikh raised a single long white eyebrow.

“I came here looking for help from the Keeper of the Dead, He who makes the two worlds join.”

There was a long silence, during which Tom found himself under the close scrutiny of a pair of piercing black eyes, almost reduced to slits as Sadek al-Nazar took his time to assess him. The result seemed to be in the Englishman’s favour, because when the long, slanted eyes went back to their usual shape, the Sheikh’s face had lost some of its severity.

“So, Thomas Ferguson,” he said quietly, his eyes not leaving Tom’s face. “What brings you into my humble home?”

“It’s a long story,” Tom replied, feeling a bit uneasy about telling this supremely dignified man everything about the mess going on.

“Then take your time to tell it. And please, sit down.”

_Right. He’s got an answer for everything, has he?_ Tom took the offered chair with thanks, and scratched awkwardly the back of his neck, thinking about where to begin.

“Thank you. All right… Well, eight years ago I became a member of a secret British governmental organisation called the Chamber of Horus, which searches North Africa for potentially dangerous artefacts in order to make them safe – that’s what I was told at the time. Now, two years ago, a very important artefact was retrieved from the lost Oasis of Ahm Shere by a family of Egyptologists, Rick and Dr Evelyn O’Connell. However, they did not keep the Diamond of Ahm Shere, but sold it to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.

“It just so happened – although I was unaware of it at the time – that the one who made the transaction with the curator, Dr Hakim, about the Diamond, was an old friend of mine, Jonathan Carnahan, Dr O’Connell’s brother.

“A few months ago, in the wake of dark events in Europe and Northern Africa, the Chamber decided that the Diamond of Ahm Shere was no longer safe in Egypt and had to be removed to England where it could be watched more closely. As I understand it, Evelyn and Rick O’Connell were asked by the Government to go to Egypt, negotiate with the Museum authorities, and bring the Diamond back to England.”

Tom hesitated a bit at first, but felt more and more self-assured as he talked and talked, choosing his words carefully and always looking at the Sheikh in the eye. Sadek al-Nazar listened with his eyes half-closed, his long, lean fingers crossed in front of him; however, when Tom stopped to regain breath and think about what to say next, he opened his eyes and politely invited him to carry on.

“I was one of the agents sent here a week ago with my superior, Charles Hamilton, to see to it that the Diamond was in good hands and that nothing would happen. However, what I wasn’t aware of at the time was that Hamilton had his own agenda concerning both the Diamond and Ahm Shere.

“Last week – last Monday, I mean – I ran into Jonathan Carnahan in Cairo. That was a complete surprise, because I didn’t know he had followed his sister to Egypt, and a welcome one, because I was glad to see him again after all this time. The problem is that Hamilton heard of this chance encounter on the very same day and took the opportunity to act. He gave me orders to take advantage of my ‘good situation’ with Jon and the O’Connells in order to steal the Diamond of Ahm Shere. I refused, of course. Then he gave me the proof that my wife was being held captive in a secret place, and that if I still refused to obey orders, I’d never see her alive and well again.”

Tom stopped again, to try and swallow the lump in his throat. Al-Nazar opened his eyes and gazed at him intently, but did not say anything.

“What was I to do after that? The day after, we – I mean Jon, his sister Evelyn and I – were going to see the Diamond at the Museum. Somebody created a diversion that led Drs Hakim and O’Connell elsewhere, and in the meanwhile, agents broke in the Diamond’s room me and Jon were ‘guarding’, knocked both of us out cold and left with the Diamond. I was rather relieved to think this was the end.

“Three days after that, though, Hamilton sent agents to Cairo, and kidnapped Jon and Rick O’Connell. My cover was blown as I helped in the taking.” Tom felt his voice shake a little bit and waited a short while before continuing, “They were held first in the basement of the British Consulate, then in a house in Giza. I went there to try to talk to them, and Hamilton turned up at that moment and explained his plans to the three of us.”

_Okay, the moment of truth._ “Maybe you know some things about Germany and its Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Hamilton is persuaded that Hitler’s going to cause some sort of huge human catastrophe someday, and he plans to go to Ahm Shere, use the Diamond to open the pyramid, and claim the Army of Anubis for his own so that he might wipe out the threat Germany’s leader stands for by, er… wiping out Germany.”

Another silence settled – a different one, though, now that Tom had finished his story. He just sat straight-backed on the wooden chair, feeling out-of-place and staring wordlessly at his still-untouched glass of mint tea that had stopped steaming a while ago. Sheikh al-Nazar stared at him for another couple of seconds, then said slowly, “Why have you come to see me? What sort of help are you asking for?”

Well, that was it, wasn’t it? Tom braced himself and looked up. “Beside the fact that what Hamilton plans to do _has_ to be stopped, I can’t help thinking that he’s got it all wrong. I mean, what are the chances that the Army of Anubis will answer to a mortal? He says he’s relying on the legend, but what _does_ the legend say exactly?”

Sheikh al-Nazar actually gave a small smile. Or at least, one corner of his thin mouth crept up slightly. The result might have been pretty scary if his slanted eyes hadn’t appeared to be genuinely smiling.

“Whom do you wish to ask – the Keeper of the Dead, or the Dead themselves?”

“Anyone who can give me the truth about the Army of Anubis,” Tom answered eagerly. The Sheikh looked appraisingly at him for two more seconds, then rose from his chair, picked an unlit torch from the wall, and walked to a door in the back of the room.

“Come.”

Tom followed him out of the room into another, with little light and much rougher walls. There was a trapdoor in the middle of the room, and before the Sheikh opened it, he turned to the Englishman and pinned him with a very serious stare. “From now on, whatever you hear, whatever you see, keep still and silent. One move, one sound – and you are dead.”

Tom gulped with some difficulty, but nodded, and followed Sheikh al-Nazar through the trapdoor.

The two men walked down a long flight of stairs, and Tom couldn’t help but notice that the air around him was getting colder and colder. Maybe it was only a trick of his imagination, but as they went down a narrow corridor – the only source of light being the torch al-Nazar had lit up before they got down the stairs – Tom found himself shivering. It made him wonder exactly how far they were below the surface. To be _that_ cold in one of the hottest parts in the world, it had to be pretty far.

They finally came to another door, which the Sheikh opened slowly. The room inside was rather small, with a low ceiling and stone walls that looked very, very old. Near the opposite wall was a small table covered entirely with a long tablecloth that could have been blue or dark red – Tom couldn’t really tell in the dark. There was a silver censer in front of the table, containing an odd mix of strange small pellets and bits of what looked like coal. The whole thing smelt to high heaven of burnt wood and myrrh.

Sadek al-Nazar beckoned him to stay near the closed door, and brought a thin long finger to his lips. He didn’t need to. The atmosphere felt so strange to Tom that there was something in his throat that choked down any sound.

The Sheikh turned his back on the Englishman to face the censer, the table, and the wall behind it. He began chanting in a language Tom didn’t recognise, his deep, low voice sounding even deeper and lower. Tom felt the air around him change – not only was it turning even colder, if such a thing was possible, but it also seemed to be growing scarce, or heavier. As if the air was sucked in from the room to go revolving around al-Nazar instead, whose black robes were billowing in a wind Tom couldn’t feel.

Both terrorised and galvanised, he watched on, mesmerised, as a blurry figure began to appear as though sketched out on the wall, above the table, as if floating in the air. It was tall, imposing even, and as the outlines grew more definite Tom could make out a dark head like a jackal’s, and a body wearing the white linen robe of Ancient Egyptian priests.

The jackal-headed god Anubis was standing before them.

Tom managed to stop his jaw from unclenching with a violent effort of will, but it was close. He was too terrified by the Sheikh’s words to him to attempt anything that might resemble making a ‘move’ or a ‘sound’. He even tried not to shiver too much and kept his back against the wall, vainly searching for warmth.

An unearthly voice poured down into the room, accompanied with another wave of cold. Tom couldn’t make out one word of it – but then, at that point, he wouldn’t have understood a thing even if it had been speaking plain old English. Tears were stinging his eyes, and he couldn’t feel the fingers he’d stuck under his armpits to keep warm.

_For God’s sake, make it _stop…

Unlike him, the Sheikh didn’t seem to mind the cold; in fact, Tom wondered whether he felt it at all. He was talking to the tall, somewhat blurry figure floating above the table, otherwise standing completely still, not heeding the small whirlwind around him either.

Then Tom saw him give a deep bow, and the form on the wall vanished. So did the wind, and, he noticed, air seemed to settle back into the room just as the paralysing cold departed, leaving a much more reasonable temperature. He relaxed a little bit, his heart pounding in his chest, and looked around him, bemused. Al-Nazar walked towards him, and briefly lay a hand on his shoulder before opening the door and going through it. Tom followed without a word. His throat still felt too tight to talk.

His legs wobbling, and his mind buzzing with questions he couldn’t even list, he followed the Sheikh back into the corridor, then up the stairs, and into the Sheikh’s living room. The difference in temperatures was shocking.

“Here,” said al-Nazar, handing him a cup of something, “sit down, and drink this. You look like you are in need of both.”

So he did look just as he felt. Great. Tom accepted the cup and held it in a trembling hand, careful not to spill it over the carpet as he sat down. When he dipped his lips in the liquid, he found it to be a well-made _mazboot3_. He closed his eyes as he drank. The coffee was excellent.

“Do not think that I call upon the gods every day, but now time is of the essence. For it seems that you were right, Thomas Ferguson,” Sadek al-Nazar said as the Englishman put his cup on the table. “There is indeed a mortal willing to claim the Army of Anubis for his own. According to what I’ve learned, he will attempt it in three days, at the coming New Year, which will herald the Year of the Jackal.”

Tom nodded. “That’s what Hamilton said.”

Al-Nazar’s black eyes narrowed at him, suddenly keener. “Does he know that this is not the entire truth?”

Tom’s head snapped up. “I don’t know. What _is_ the entire truth?”

“An ordinary man cannot summon Anubis’ Army and use it for his own purposes,” the Sheikh said grimly. “If a mortal attempts to raise it, the Army will be unleashed in this world, with no master, and no purpose but to kill and destroy. His body and his mind will function only as a vessel for the will of Anubis. He must relinquish both, for without either the link will be shattered and the Army gone.”

Tom gulped. So that’s how you felt when you heard the end of the world was a few days ahead. He couldn’t help but wonder how Jon had reacted, both times – if he had felt so scared and so cold so quickly.

His bet was on ‘yes’.

“But there is another thing you must know. Ahm Shere was created after a pact the Scorpion King made with Anubis. As we speak, Anubis is claiming Ahm Shere. On the dawn of the next Year of the Jackal, it shall be forever destroyed.”

_Blimey_. “Wait,” Tom stammered, “wait, that – that means –”

“Yes. The New Year starts when the new moon sets.”

Tom’s jaw went slack and something icy and sharp crossed his stomach.

_They’re going to be in that bloody pyramid at the exact moment it’s destroyed. Of all the luck…!_

There was a little voice inside of him that reminded him Hamilton would probably not have the time to carry out his projects thanks to this particular fault in his plans, and that this was a very good thing. But the major part of his mind was screaming that he ought to do something – everyone who would be in the pyramid at that moment would be killed. Fellow agents he considered friends. O’Connell. Jon.

He must have paled a good deal, because Sheikh al-Nazar was looking at him with something like concern in his slanted eyes.

“Are you feeling well?”

Tom looked around to avoid his eyes, feeling sick and cold despite the heat. “Y—yes, yes, thank you,” he finally stammered absently. Then he took a deep breath and looked up at the Sheikh. “No,” he said, more firmly. “No, I’m not.”

Anger flared up inside him, and he just stopped thinking about what to say next. “Hamilton’s a madman who doesn’t care about killing thousands of people, but the people he’s going to take with him in the Pyramid don’t deserve to die!” _Oh, hell._ “I’ve friends among ‘em! And I don’t care if Jon thinks I’m just a bloody traitor – I’m not lettin’ him die in there either, dammit!”

Tom had forgotten that he was speaking to what was probably the most important man in Egypt, that he was sitting in his house and drinking his coffee, and that he had just witnessed this particular man having a nice little tête-à-tête with a god from Ancient Egypt. He hadn’t even realised he was shouting. When he did realise that, he felt not a little afraid.

But Sadek al-Nazar didn’t seem offended. Not to the point of doing something that might actually threaten Tom, anyway. In fact, if anything, he looked a little bit amused by the sudden resurfacing of Tom’s accent.

The Englishman took a second or two to calm himself down a bit, then muttered, “Sorry. Guess I got carried away.”

“It certainly sounded so,” al-Nazar said, almost pleasantly. “Now, what do you intend to do?”

What could he even do? Good question. “I’ll – I’ll, ah…”

_Oh, be honest with yourself, for once_. “Sheikh, there’s nothing I can really do now. Hamilton doesn’t trust me in the least and I wouldn’t put it past him to have me followed. If I try to contact Dr O’Connell in any way, I’ll get locked up and be truly incapable of doing anything this time.”

The Sheikh nodded gravely, and Tom’s heart plummeted in his stomach. There had to be something that could be done to set things right, there just _had_ to –

His heart suddenly skipped a beat. There _was_ something. “The Medjai!”

“What of them?” Sheikh al-Nazar asked politely, with something in his slight smile that would have made Tom think, if he had noticed it.

“The Medjai were there last time the Army of Anubis arose – and their Commander’s friends with the O’Connells – somebody’s got to get them!” He searched his pockets frantically and eventually found a crumpled piece of paper and a pen, on which he scribbled hastily the O’Connells’ address in Cairo.

“If someone could go there – and ask for Dr Evelyn O’Connell, to tell her that her husband and her brother are fine –” there he hesitated a bit “– for the moment. You’ll recognise her easily, she’s a beautiful woman, with dark hair and bright eyes, and she’s very intelligent. Tell her also to go to the Medjai, because if somebody can set things right, it’s them.”

According to what he knew of the secretive desert people, that is.

Tom rose and took a deep bow. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go now if I don’t want to look suspicious.”

“I understand, Mr Ferguson,” the Sheikh said in that deep voice of his. “Dr O’Connell will be informed, and the Medjai alerted.”

“Thanks a lot, Sheikh. Thank you.”

On those words he meant as a parting, Tom headed for the door. However, he stopped there when Sadek al-Nazar’s voice rose again behind him.

“You seem to treasure friendship, Mr Ferguson. That is a noble thing. If your friend values it like you do, you do not have to worry.”

Tom turned his head to look at the stately old man sitting in his wooden armchair, the exact replica of the image he’d seen when he first entered the room. He nodded and forced a smile.

“Thanks.”

Once outside, as he picked up his bicycle and proceeded to pedal like mad to get to Giza in time, he wondered about the Sheikh’s last phrase. He didn’t know why on Earth the old man had said that – surely it was not only to make him feel better, was it? Why would he bother?

Well, maybe Tom was completely wrong. Or there had been some sort of riddle, of hidden message behind the phrase. He didn’t know. Witnessing the summoning of a god from the other world of Ancient Egypt had scrambled his brains just a little in the first place, and he was still reeling from what al-Nazar had told him.

Once thing was certain, though. Whatever the Sheikh might say, it wouldn’t be this easy to make it up with Jon. He could be pig-headed about that sort of thing. When somebody messed up with him one way or another, he often forgot, but never forgave. The exact contrary of Tom, who sometimes forgave, but never forgot.

Tom cringed.

No, it definitely wouldn’t be that easy.

* * *

1Kushari tea (شاى كشرى) is a popular tea in Lower (Northern) Egypt. It’s a light and slightly sweetened, often flavoured with mint leaves.

2(إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ) “God willing”

3Medium-sweet Egyptian coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The character of Sheikh Sadek al-Nazar (coming from [نَظَر], _naẓar_, “eyesight”, “seeing”, “vision”) was heavily influenced by Sheikh Abdel Razek, a very mysterious old man, seemingly omniscient, in Edgar P. Jacobs’ _Le Mystère de la Grande Pyramide_ (a _bande dessinée_ in the Blake and Mortimer series). This particular comics is a big part of what nudged me to write this story in the first place.
> 
> Everything Tom reads from his book is, to put it mildly, a whole load of bollocks. The High Priest of Osiris resided at Abydos, for instance, not Thebes and certainly not Giza. But the _Mummy_ films play fast and loose with both history and mythology, so *shrug*.


	11. The Misgivings of Izzy Buttons

Evelyn O’Connell was tired.

Not that this particular fact in itself was surprising: she was usually the first to admit that she was not much of a morning person. She could burn the midnight oil for what Rick qualified as an unreasonably long time, but when it came down to getting up in the morning… Well, sometimes it needed all of Rick’s persuasion to get her eyes to open.

Now, having slept less than ten hours after a sleepless night would make anyone tired. Not being a morning person had very little to do with that, especially since the old clock in the entrance corridor had just struck seven o’clock in the evening.

However, strain had never dampened Evy’s determination. And Sheikh al-Nazar didn’t seem to notice that she blinked a bit more than was polite as he recounted his interview with Tom Ferguson.

Evelyn couldn’t say she wasn’t a little bit disappointed at first. For one brief, shining moment, she had thought she would find Ferguson in Nazlet El Samman and drag him back to her house by the ear to make him spill the beans about where Rick and Jonathan had been taken. Then, as Rick would have said, they would have been onto something constructive.

But things were never that easy, she thought as she listened to the Sheikh’s tale.

She listened intently as he told her about the plans of that Hamilton fellow, and felt something twist her stomach at the correction al-Nazar brought about the Army of Anubis and what they would do if unleashed on the world. It was maybe a sign that she was getting used to apocalypses that Evelyn quickly got over her initial shock; but she all but gasped when the old man mentioned ever so casually that he had asked Anubis for information about his army. Of course, as a librarian, she had heard and read about High Priests calling upon gods in time of dire necessity, but the Bembridge scholars would dismiss such hearsay as fairy tales, not factual, verifiable reality. Then again, she thought, a small smile making its way on her lips, the Bembridge scholars were wrong about a lot of things.

“What did Anubis say?” she asked, the familiar feeling of mingled excitement and apprehension that appeared each time she was confronted with something unknown or unheard of awakening in her chest.

Al-Nazar marked a small pause, as though hesitating – as though he almost did not think she would take what he had said seriously.

“The great god Anubis told me that Ahm Shere would not see the next year. He is claiming her, and to him she must go.”

Evy’s mind began to race. She barely noticed Alex and Ardeth breaking off their conversation and looking at her.

“Dr Hakim said that the pyramid is probably still buried under the sand… That means it will be utterly destroyed on the next New Year’s Day, doesn’t it? Well, this means we’ve still –”

She felt her jaw unhinge in spite of herself as a certain thought popped into her mind.

The Egyptian calendar had nothing to do with the Gregorian calendar. And the next New Year was to begin on –

Evy felt colour drain from her cheeks.

“Oh my God… we’ve only got four days to stop them.”

“Three, Mum,” came her son’s voice, a little bit more high-pitched than usual. Alex looked suddenly paler under his blond fringe.

Sadek al-Nazar gave a slight bow, and Evy turned back to him.

“Now you know everything I know. I hope you all succeed in your endeavours, whatever those might be. Farewell.”

A second later he was gone. Alex’s none too steady voice broke the puzzled silence that had settled after the Sheikh’s parting words. “Whoa. What the hell did _that_ mean?”

Evelyn rolled her eyes at her son’s language, but for once said nothing, because Ardeth stepped in. “That we’ve got little time,” he said quickly. “Evelyn, I’m going back to the Medjai. There is a lot to be done.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, thinking hard and fast about what _she_ could do.

“Call the tribes, dispatch spies, find out where they are and when they intend to go to Ahm Shere, if they are not already gone. We might have to attack them in the desert as a last resort. And if this doesn’t scare them into changing their mind…”

Evy had already seen the Medjai attack an archaeological party in order to protect Hamunaptra, the Lost City hiding both great treasure and great danger. She knew from experience just how scary it was, being on the wrong side of artfully and lethally wielded rifles and scimitars.

But another thing she knew by experience was that even the Medjai were not all-powerful, and that it only took one strong-minded person – _all right, __foolhardy and __stubborn as a mule, too_ – to reduce three thousand years’ work to nothing. If she, at the time, had managed to wake up Imhotep after two strong-arm warnings from the strange desert men in black, what could possibly stop Ferguson’s boss from going to Ahm Shere and claiming Anubis’ Army for his own?

Beside death, that is.

She kept her thoughts to herself and gave a nod to Ardeth as he headed for the door.

“Hey, what about us?” exclaimed Alex, making her jump slightly. “What do _we_ do now?”

Ardeth turned his head and looked at mother and son in turn. “The wisest thing would be for you to stay here. However, as I know this won’t be the case –” and there Evelyn could have sworn she saw a twinkle in his eye despite his stern face, “– I suggest you find a safe means of transportation. We may need to leave quickly. In this case I’ll meet you at the south door of Fort Brydon tomorrow morning at eight.”

This time, Evy felt a fully-fledged grin stretch her lips.

It just so happened that she knew exactly the man for the job.

* * *

Down in the cell that looked rather like a cellar, the heat had abated to a more reasonable temperature. It was almost cool in the room; one could guess that the night must have fallen not long ago. Soon, it would get colder, but nowhere close to the biting cold of the desert nights. In the middle of the Sahara, the night could chill anyone’s bones through more efficiently than a European winter’s breeze.

The small yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling was blinking unsteadily, and the bleak light it managed to cast in the room blinked in rhythm. Jonathan had been trying for quite a while to find a regular pattern to this rhythm, a sense of sorts, but he wasn’t getting any result. Not that he was really expecting any, for that matter.

Staring at this bulb was a somewhat efficient way to not think about Tom and Hamilton and Anubis’ Army and the Scorpion King and lots of things. Staring at this bulb made him avoid thinking at all. Unfortunately, thoughts drifted in and out, and Jonathan did not see any way to truly evade them.

This Hamilton was mad.

No, scratch that.

This Hamilton was a bloody raving lunatic!

Granted, Jonathan had never seen the Warriors of Anubis in action… But he had had plenty of more or less wanted details from Ardeth, who always did seem to enjoy taking the mickey out of him a little too much for Jonathan’s liking. Before and after the big battle. If these kinds of stories had reached him when he was a small kid, there was no doubt that they would have often kept him awake all night.

However, Ardeth wasn’t the one who had truly made Jonathan’s skin crawl with his description of the jackal Warriors. The Englishman would always keep in mind the aftermath of the battle over Ahm Shere, after Izzy ‘dropped’ them for a while at the Medjai camp in order to at least say goodbye properly to Ardeth, make sure he was all right as well, that sort of thing.

The Medjai Commander wasn’t quite what one could call ‘all right’. Despite a few scratches he was physically intact, but he had lost more than a quarter of his men on the battlefield. His face was sombre as he described the fight in a few tense words. Evy’s eyes were sad, and both Rick and Alex were uncharacteristically quiet. For his part, Jonathan was too busy trying to swallow the lump in his throat to speak.

And then, as he lingered a few steps behind the small group, he heard something that quite literally made his hair stand on end. A scream. A scream so terrified, so terrifying in itself that his first impulse was to start running madly and not look back. He did not run, however, but spun on his heels to face the source of the scream.

_Good Lord…_

It was a kid. A boy of twenty, more likely nineteen, his tanned skin almost grey with terror and glistening with sweat, his dark eyes wild and bulging. Everything about him spoke of something so horrifying it was unspeakable; from his eyes, in particular, came such a terror that Jonathan’s stomach did a double somersault. He could not detach his stare from those eyes. He hadn’t seen the like since the end of the war, almost two decades ago, when he’d been roughly the kid’s age.

The boy had a large gash on his left side, and the men and women who tended to him came and went around him, blind and deaf to everything that went on outside of the tent. For a second, Jonathan was also blind and deaf to everything that wasn’t that kid’s eyes.

This was maybe why he jumped out of his skin when somebody touched his arm, as if sending a bolt of electricity through him. That somebody was Evy, and she was looking at him strangely; he pointed a somewhat shaky finger at the tent and the boy on the cot. She opened her mouth and her eyes widened.

“Holy shit. This kid looks like he saw the devil himself.” Rick’s low voice sounded none too steady either. He held Alex close to him, shielding the tent from view. Alex, usually so inquisitive, didn’t even try to peek and just clung to his father.

“He’s not the only one,” said Ardeth’s dark voice from behind them. “Older Medjai also seem to have this sort of terror in their eyes when the Warriors of Anubis come into their minds. Those Warriors are a wild, dark sort; they do not know the meaning of mercy, and they are ruthless and cruel to no end.”

And he had taken the four of them along elsewhere, shifting subjects rather abruptly, which wasn’t like him at all. But the expression in this anonymous boy’s eyes had long stuck in Jonathan’s mind, and from what he had understood afterwards, he wasn’t the only one.

The Warriors of Anubis were the sort to fill some of the bravest people he knew with unspeakable terror.

And those were the kind of monsters that Hamilton planned to send after thousands of people!

Bloody lunatic.

Jonathan shivered, feeling the cold of the night gradually creeping over him. Rick was already sleeping; it seemed that he had been for some time, if the moment he had put his head on the ground counted as falling asleep. The American, faithful to old habits, had managed to wrap himself in his brown jacket, and somehow he looked fairly comfortable this way. He even sounded comfortable, considering the quiet but deep and steady snoring that came from his corner of the room.

The bulb went out.

Without any warning, the world – or rather, the cell – went pitch black.

For a long moment, Jonathan kept his eyes wide open in the complete darkness, hoping the small light would come back, almost waiting for it. He had grown so used to this yellowish excuse for a light that its abrupt disappearance made it look like a bright, shining star in hindsight. But the room remained dark, and although Jonathan still stared around, he couldn’t even see the tip of his nose.

Only Rick’s snores remained as a signal to his position. As in, ‘_Don’t you step this way, I’m sleeping here_.’ After much deliberation with himself, Jonathan had to admit that it was sort of reassuring to know that he wasn’t the only living man in this room. And it was a hell of an acknowledgement, because in any other circumstances he would already have taken off a shoe and thrown it across the room.

All right, maybe only thought about doing so – Rick could be in a really rotten mood if somebody woke him up the wrong way. And he really did _not_ want to be on the wrong side of an O’Connell glare, even in utter darkness.

Nonetheless, sleep continued to evade Jonathan, who was gradually feeling more and more cold and bored. The image of the kid scared to death still hung in front of his eyes whether he closed or opened them, which didn’t make any difference anyway.

He really could use a stiff drink right now.

There was something both scary and strange with staring at a world of black. Scary, because even for the most rational person on Earth, there still will be a little voice in the back of the mind whispering things like _it’s going to remain this way for ever_, or _you won’t see ever again, even when light does come back_. Strange, because the atmosphere changed radically. The movements somehow felt less real without the confirmation of sight. Even noises seemed to come muffled, the only actual sound being Rick’s steady snoring from the other side of the room, a few feet away.

Said snoring was actually growing less steady, as Jonathan noticed. As it sounded, Rick was grunting and shifting in his sleep, and the Englishman was almost tempted to shake him awake or something. But the last thing Jonathan wanted was to trip over something in the dark and wake him in a far more sudden way. The consequences could be disastrous, as he observed thanks to a particular event that happened a few years ago.

It had been only a cat, and Rick had been only half-asleep, but the animal had had the very bad idea of leaping lightly on him to sniff his face. The American had sent the cat flying across the room before even realising there had been no immediate danger. Jonathan still recalled Evy’s aghast expression, followed by an incredulous glare – oh yes, she was quite good at this one – that had forced his own laughter back down his throat.

_Oh, of course_. That change in Rick’s sleep must have something to do with Evy. Or Alex, for that matter. Rick had seemed to forget how to sleep soundly when the lad had been taken two years ago, and remember only after Alex was back. As for Evy… Well, after what happened at that place, suffice it to say that it had taken some time for the three other members of the family to be thoroughly convinced that she was very much alive, quite well, and not going anywhere. As far as Jonathan was concerned, it had been a bit difficult to get it into his head that nobody was going to take his baby sister away after all. At least in the first four or five months following Ahm Shere.

Rick muttered something in his sleep, and Jonathan turned his eyes in the general direction of the sound.

“Speak up, old boy – can’t quite hear you.”

Whether Rick had heard him or not, Jonathan had no idea, but something in the mumbling became clearer.

“Mmhm… vvv… vy… Evy…”

Right on target. Jonathan winced sympathetically and turned back to where he imagined the door would be. If you didn’t count the previous night, this marked the first time in years that the two lovebirds didn’t sleep at least under the same roof. And since eleven years made for enough time to grow used to one’s baby sister getting married and everything that went with it, Jonathan thought he could afford to feel sorry for his brother-in-law. At least be sympathetic.

Maybe it was because he was a little lost in his silent musings, or maybe he simply wasn’t paying attention, but he didn’t notice the sliver of light creeping from under the door right away. It was tiny, but growing slowly, meaning that somebody was walking down the flight of stairs holding a light. But even Jonathan couldn’t fail to notice the sound of footfalls coming closer and closer down the steps, then the corridor. He scrambled to his feet and tried to locate his sleeping brother-in-law in the darkness, which was easier said than done.

“Rick? Come on, old chap, wake up, we’ve got company… I think. Rick, where the hell – _oof!_”

Of course, he tripped over the sleeping American and fell heavily on what he thought was his stomach. The next second, a hand that felt as though it had been clad in iron grasped his throat, crushing his windpipe quite effectively.

“D–don’t be r–r–ridiculous, Rick, it’s me!” Jonathan managed to choke out. The hand released its grip immediately.

“Oh… sorry about that. Old reflexes, you know.”

Jonathan could almost hear him smirk in the dark room.

“Don’t mention it,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

“You know,” he heard Rick say after a couple of seconds, “in this kind of situation, it’s better not to try to use long words. Short ones are easier to get out, see.”

This time, he was absolutely sure that Rick was grinning. Which was confirmed when the door opened, letting in somebody holding a paraffin lamp, although the sudden light seemed so intense that it was impossible to say how many they were behind it.

“Gentlemen,” came the unmistakable slimy voice, “please forgive us for disturbing your sleep, but it’s a long way to where we are going and we must leave now. If you would follow us.”

Now that his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, Jonathan could recognise the creepy-looking bloke who had led the taking in Cairo; Baine, Hamilton had said. And, considering the way Rick’s face clouded dangerously, he was not the only one.

Outside, only a very thin crescent moon hung in the sky, but they could see everything surrounding them as if it were daylight. The stark white walls of the little houses of Giza looked pale blue under the starlight, and the shadows were longer and deeper. It was a little bit eerie.

They were being led to the same truck that had brought them there, and Jonathan sighed wistfully, wishing he had got as much sleep as Rick had these past few hours. Whatever sleep he was going to get in there would hardly be restful.

To his surprise, there were two old mattresses secured to the floor of the truck. They were so old that springs were sticking out in places, and several buttons were missing.

“That’s for us?” Rick was eyeing the mattresses in a way that was both wary and sarcastic. “Neat, as my son would say. Is that the best you’ve got?”

“Certainly not, Mr O’Connell,” said Baine with a smirk. “But it’s the best _you’ve_ got. We’re keeping the very best for our superior.”

“Lucky bastard.”

Fortunately, maybe, for Rick, only Jonathan heard that, and he agreed heartily. Silently, of course.

He searched for Tom among the different faces that all looked the same under this bluish light, but didn’t find him. This was rather disappointing. He had almost wished to see his former friend before going to Ahm Shere, to see whether he was in on Hamilton’s plan or not, what he thought about it all. But then, he reflected a little bitterly, if the man was capable of everything he had done so far without asking questions, only to follow orders mindlessly, then there was nothing left to say.

Of course, seeing him lose so much colour at Hamilton’s exposition had made Jonathan keep for a moment the feeble hope that he would do – or try to do – something to stop that. Tommy was always the one who would stick up for lost cases, try to right the wrongs, that sort of thing. He had sort of been Jonathan’s conscience for a while, and there had been many times when Jonathan had pulled him back in time to save him from doing something downright stupid. Obviously, Tommy often got furious on occasions like these, calling Jonathan a self-serving git, but if he was proved wrong he would reluctantly admit to it. And it worked both ways.

So it was a little bit odd to picture Tom Ferguson executing orders without thinking. But then, everyone and everything seemed to be constantly changing; why should Tom be an exception to the rule?

Jonathan hadn’t realised how exhausted he was until he put his head on the beaten-up mattress and fell abruptly asleep.

* * *

Evelyn was awake by the crack of dawn.

As light made its way inside the house, she packed a few clothes, food, and a number of Rick’s guns, certain as she was, despite her dislike for firearms, that they would come in handy at some point. She also took her own favourite weapon, a slender scimitar, light but strong, that Ardeth had given her for practice after seeing her fighting against Lock-Nah’s men.

When everything was ready, she went to Alex’s room to wake him. After a solid breakfast – all the more so considering it would probably be their last real breakfast for days – they set off in Jonathan’s car to what was gradually becoming the first real private airport of Cairo.

Evelyn couldn’t help a sigh of relief when she saw the ‘Magic Carpet Airways’ sign. It wasn’t hasty words painted on an old, dusty bit of wood this time, but shiny brass letters planted on a neat, dark bit of wood. Oddly enough, it was hanging on the same big wooden doors.

“Looks like he’s changed things around a bit, hasn’t he?” said Alex beside her with a whistle, looking at the great big doors.

“Let’s hope he’s still here,” Evy muttered, a bit worried.

As if on cue, one of the doors opened, and a gangling black man stumbled out, holding a few rolled-up maps and scratching the back of his head, making the flying hat he wore tip dangerously over his eyes.

Evelyn and her son exchanged glances.

“He’s still here.”

“Most definitely.”

She gave her sweetest smile and a small wave. “Why, hello, Mr. Buttons!”

Izzy’s reaction was immediate, to say the least. He froze on the spot, and stood there with his mouth hanging open, fish-like, staring at mother and son with owlishly wide eyes. Utter terror was in them.

“Oh, no… no… no, not you lot again!”

“Come now, Izzy, I haven’t said anything.”

He frowned.

“Please, ma’am, tell me this is just paying a friendly visit to a pal who’s saved your butts one time and nothing more.”

Evelyn gave the most reassuring smile she could. “Oh yes, I was passing by with my son and we decided to pay you a friendly visit.”

“Uh-huh,” said Izzy, one eyebrow deeply frowned and the other raised. “With all those bags?”

“Well, we also happen to be in need of a swift means of transportation.”

Izzy’s face lightened. The four silver teeth gleamed in his grin. “I can take you anywhere, even down south to Memphis or the Valley of the Kings – you study this stuff, right? Name the place and I’ll take you there. I got a new balloon, y’know,” he added, beaming with pride.

Evelyn gave a wry smile and shook her head. It worked. Izzy understood. His eyes widened again, his mouth opened, and he swiftly spun on his heels and ran back behind the door, locking it behind him.

Alex rolled his eyes and muttered something Evelyn didn’t quite catch.

“Exactly what did you say, Alex?”

“Nothing, Mum,” he replied quickly. Too quickly. Evy smiled.

“That’s what I thought.”

“What are we doing, then?” he asked, grasping the strap of his bag on his shoulder.

“I think he might be in need of a little persuasion.”

Grabbing the bags, she walked to the door, Alex behind her, and knocked firmly on the wood.

“Izzy, open this door!”

“Hell no,” came Izzy’s voice from some ways behind the door.

“This is ridiculous – nobody’s going to shoot you!”

“That’s what O’Connell said last time, but last time was worse than any time I got shot! What d’you want me for this time?”

“Something that does not include danger for you in any form – now open up!”

Evelyn was starting to get angry. She missed her husband, she missed her brother, and her patience was wearing thin.

That’s when she noticed Alex had put his bag on the ground and was searching his pockets.

“Alex, what are you doing?”

The boy didn’t answer. His face lit up as he fished a large paper clip from under his pocket handkerchief. “Got it.”

Evelyn stared as Alex pulled and twisted the paper clip into a certain shape. Then, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, he introduced it in the lock and began to turn it gingerly, his ear close to the door, listening raptly to catch any possible sound.

“Alexander John O’Connell! Why, I never –”

She was interrupted by the sound of a lock opening, and Alex grinned up at her.

“Aw, Mum, you know I hate it when you call me that.”

Evelyn remained speechless for a second as her son put his paper clip back into his pocket. While she was perfectly aware that Alex knew a good few tricks in the wide book of stealth and eavesdropping, it was the first time she saw him actually try something like this, not to mention make it work.

Alex was still grinning proudly, and she smiled in spite of herself. After all, these kinds of skills _could_ come in handy. But still… It wasn’t proper to be proud about the prospect of a successful career in burglary. No matter what some people argued.

“Well… I think I’ll have a word with your uncle.”

“Don’t be mad at him, _I_ asked him to show me this trick.”

“My point exactly.”

She put her hand on the doorknob…

The door had a bolt on the inside.

Alex’s face fell. Evelyn took pity of him and smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, dear. I’ll just take a leaf out of your father’s book, now, shall I? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

She shook the door a little bit, to know exactly where the bolt was, and, as Alex’s eyes widened slightly, pulled out a short-muzzle shotgun from the bag she had put the lot of them into, and checked it was loaded.

“Izzy, wherever you are, I hope it’s not behind this door,” she said calmly before she pointed the gun at the door and pressed the trigger. There was a loud crack, the recoil almost made her arm shake – but when the small cloud of smoke dissipated, she could see the bolt on the ground, and, on the door, a hole where it had been blasted off. She reached, and, delicately, knocked on the maimed door.

A shaking black hand pulled it slowly open, and Izzy’s pleading face appeared.

“No, Mrs O’Connell, no… not that _place_ again…” he moaned. “Please. That place is nothin’ but trouble. Just to get to it there was that wall of water, then we crashed, and then there was those weird noises…”

“Oh, _that_? That was nothing,” said Alex self-confidently. Izzy gave him an odd look.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, just a bunch of p—”

Evelyn just had the time to put a hand on her son’s mouth before he could say ‘pygmy mummies’. Then she gave the pilot her most motherly smile.

“Izzy, we just need you to take us there. There’s no one chasing us, nobody after us – nothing’s going to happen to you. Besides, we don’t have much time, we have an appointment at Fort Brydon at eight.”

“Mmhrph. What do you even need to go in that bloody desert for?” Izzy asked gruffly. “Last time, there was nothing left but sand – and blood, too, I bet.”

Evy decided to play the ‘serious’ card. She narrowed her eyes and set her mouth in a firm line.

“Well, my husband and my brother have been taken. I will get them back, and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Yeah, me too,” Alex chimed in at her elbow. Evelyn smiled inwardly at her son’s determination. He looked so sure of himself despite his small size that she felt her own spirits lift.

Izzy shifted uncomfortably. “So, you say O’Connell’s in trouble?”

“As I understand it, some thugs have kidnapped him and Jonathan for information about the pyramid of Ahm Shere and taken them there. Since the two of them think it no longer exists, I think we could say that they are indeed in trouble.”

Obviously, Izzy was seriously torn between rushing off to his new balloon and scramming out of here, and helping Rick for the sake of whatever history they shared. _Let’s press this issue, then._

“Izzy, I’m aware I may not know a great deal about my husband’s past. You knew him before I did; I’m sure you’ll agree if I venture that he’s not the kind of man who lets his friends down. He never let _you_ down, did he?”

In response to her kind tone, she got a mild glare and a sort of growl. “Oh yeah, he did, coupla times. Like that time with the belly-dancer g—but I’m not telling you about that.”

Too late. Alex’s eyes widened. “Belly-dancer girl? _Dad?_”

Izzy shot him a swift warning glance. “You’ll ask him when you get him back, kiddo.”

Alex made a face, frowning. “Not fair. Nobody tells me anything interesting.”

Evelyn turned back to the pilot, thinking there had been enough dilly-dallying.

“Izzy, please. Rick himself said you’d never let him down before.”

“_Turned him down_, Ma’am, not let him down. There’s a difference. Then again, there’s a first time for everything, I guess. I’m sorry, Mrs O’Connell, you’re very nice and all, and the sprog here is nice too, but the answer’s no.”

He gave her a sort of salute, putting two fingers to his flying hat, and turned away. This time, Evelyn had reached her limit. Ignoring her son’s amazed stare, she picked up again the gun that she had used to blast off the bolt with, and fired a warning shot that resounded all around the place and made the sand fly inches away from Izzy’s left foot. There was a strangled yelp, a herd of goats passing by a few metres away bleated in startled protest, and the pilot whirled round, looking panic-stricken.

“You – you – what the hell are you doin’ with that thing? You’re not gonna shoot me for real, are you?”

“I didn’t plan to,” Evy replied as coldly as she could. Good thing it appeared to be working. “But I’m going to if you don’t take us to Ahm Shere, or where Ahm Shere used to be.”

Izzy stared at her.

“You don’t know how to handle my dirigible,” he said quickly. “And if you shoot me, you’ll have nobody to guide you to –”

Evelyn cocked the gun, ignoring the fact that the butt seemed to burn her palms. “Izzy… You are _not_ the only pilot in this part of Egypt. Or even in Cairo, for that matter. Just the one I trust the most to go after my husband.”

Alex looked at Izzy, then at his mother, beaming. “Whoa, Mum! Cool!”

Izzy rolled his eyes, and muttered under his breath something that sounded like, “Family of nutcases.”

Evelyn had to concede the point.

The next moment, he was helping Evelyn carrying the bags. She thanked him warmly, but he only gave a resigned sigh and shook his head.

When her hands were free, she unloaded the gun and put it back into her bag with a lot of relief. She really felt no fondness of any sort for weapons like these, but having a few of them into her bag could be useful if things turned dirty.

Alex and she followed Izzy down the path to the airport properly speaking, and both of them stopped for a second to look at Izzy’s ‘new dirigible’. Gone was the hand-made, patchwork balloon with a small fisherman’s boat for a bottom. What stood – or rather floated – in front of them was brand-new, light grey, slender, moulded like an arrow, and had actual cabins with a number of windows. The windows had patchwork curtains to them, the only remains of Izzy’s bizarre flying contraption, and Evelyn, strangely enough, found herself almost missing the old machine.

The proud owner made a great gesture towards the dirigible, his silver teeth gleaming in the morning sun. “Ain’t she beautiful?”

“Your favours seem short-lived, Izzy,” Evelyn said with a smile. “I remember you saying these same words about your old dirigible.”

“Yeah, but the old one was a slug compared to _her_. And Dee’s great for blending with the sky – grey, y’know. _And_ she works on hot air. Cheaper, less dangerous. Can’t have customers blowing up, can I?”

Evelyn frowned. “Dee?”

Izzy cleared his throat. “Gave her a name. So’s not to get her mixed up with the old one. That’s Dee for ‘dirigible’.”

Alex gave a laugh. “Well, could’ve been worse.”

Izzy frowned down at him. “I figured you’d be a smart ass kid, kid.”

“Now, don’t go using this kind of language in front of my son,” said Evelyn, trying to sound serious. The state of things was bad enough already with Rick and Jonathan around.

“Right. Help me with that line over there.”

“This rope?”

“Yeah, that rope. Go aboard and catch it when I throw it.”

Alex was already on board, leaning against the rail. Evelyn complied, a bit puzzled. When she asked Izzy where the people who worked at the ‘Magic Carpet Airways’ were, he grumbled, “They’re gone, ain’t they? We’re supposed to be closed on Sundays and Mondays, and today’s a Monday. So you see, I’m really helpin’ you because it’s you – and ‘cause you’re paying well. So maybe O’Connell will do me a favour and not need help after that. ‘Specially from me.”

Evelyn gave him a genuine smile. “Thank you all the more for it, Mr Buttons.”

“Quit that ‘Mr Buttons’ business,” Izzy said gruffly, but smiling a bit all the same. “Sounds either too serious or just ridiculous.”

“All right, Izzy. Are we ready to go?”

“Yup. All aboard? Yes? Well, ready to go, then.”

Izzy hoped into the dirigible as the last cable was pulled in, and took his place at the helm. Alex ran to the bow to have a better look at the landscape, and Evelyn sat down on the sort of bench that ran the length of the hull under the rail.

Egypt in the morning was certainly one of the most beautiful places in the world. Far away down south, the dunes, not yet flattened by the implacable sun, stood proudly, casting shadows that were still long on the orange yellow sand. Evelyn watched the tall buildings of Cairo and the little white houses in the north getting smaller and smaller, and turned as the pyramids of Giza grew bigger. She could even start to see the Sphinx.

“We won’t overtake ‘em before nine, especially if you want to stop by the Fort,” said Izzy, whose eyes were also on the Pyramids. “Maybe we’ll be close when we stop for water, so you’ll have plenty of time to look at them.”

“Thank you,” Evelyn replied, still looking at the great shapes casting even greater shadows.

It was a quarter to eight when the walls of Fort Brydon came into view. At the foot of the wall stood a lone black-clad figure. Ardeth Bay wore his black, worn travel robes, and, it appeared, every weapon he owned.

“Him again?” Izzy cast a glance that was half glare, half pleading look at Evelyn. “So it’s gonna be just like last time, then. Gloom and doom and the world wiped out an’ all!”

“No,” Evy said firmly, “it isn’t. And be nice to Ardeth, he came here to help when he could have done otherwise.” _At least _he _ isn’t going to complain about the destination of the journey._

When the dirigible came down to the level of the Medjai Commander, he looked it over for a few seconds, then shook his head with a strange sort of grin. After he climbed onboard, he gave Evelyn a look and said calmly, “I am _not_ going to comment on this. But… I suppose there wasn’t _any_ other means of transportation, was there?”

“Hey, watch it,” snapped Izzy, his wariness forgotten, bristling at any perceived slight against his beloved Dee. “I’m not that happy to have you onboard either, so don’t you go sayin’ dirty things about my dirigible.”

Ardeth stared at the pilot for a while, during which Izzy seemed to pale a little; then a slight smile flickered over his face, and he said, “Apologies. Now quickly, if you please – there’s no time to lose.”

Evelyn shook her head to hide a grin; Alex didn’t bother, and his clear laugh rang in the morning air. Izzy humphed and went to take his place behind the helm. The dirigible rose through the air, and Fort Brydon seemed to float away.

A moment’s silence passed, only troubled by the flapping of the airs screws and the whooshing of the wind past the dirigible, then Izzy asked almost casually, “So… don’t mean to pry, but what’s the deal this time? Whatever O’Connell’s got himself into, it can’t be _that_ bad… Can it?”


	12. The Only Way to Travel

“I hate camels.”

“You’ve been whining about them long enough for me to pick that up.”

“Always did, for that matter.”

“And I’ve heard you complain about them since I met you, give or take. Give the beast a break, why don’t you?”

Jonathan huffed and made a disgusted face.

“If at least the stroppy blighter would behave decently, but no – I think it’s got something to do with the whole species, you know? I’ve never, ever seen a camel that could be labelled as ‘pleasant’.”

Rick rolled his eyes.

“Don’t know why we even bother with those smelly buggers – why couldn’t we ride something civilised such as… Such as horses? Horses are _civilised_.”

“Jonathan, do me a favour, will ya? Shut up.”

This earned Rick a dark glare, before his brother-in-law returned to staring at the endless dunes in front of him.

“No, really, I mean it – don’t you th—”

“Jonathan!”

“All right, all right, no need to shout, now, is there?”

Rick wiped the sweat off his brow with the cloth he wore on his head and looked at the Englishman in the eye.

“One, camels are more used to the desert than horses, so it’s safer to ride them. Two, horses too can be a pain in the ass when they have a mind to, and three – it’s almost noon, the sun’s right up beating down on our heads and it’s too damn scorching around here for you to keep complaining like that!”

Jonathan’s steady glare surprised Rick, who wasn’t used to getting this kind of reaction from him. Usually he would just shrug dejectedly and mutter under his breath for a while until he had something else to say and the previous conversation was forgotten. Then again, Rick reflected, Jonathan had seemed to change more in the past two days than the past ten months. Or maybe he’d simply been paying attention.

After Rick had thrown himself on the lousy mattress on the floor of the truck, he had slept soundly until he had been woken up both by the heat rising in the truck and somebody shaking him. Beside him, Jonathan had also sat up, bleary-eyed and his short curly hair sticking up in every possible direction. As it seemed, it would be growing too hot in the truck for them to stay in there during the day, so they were to ride camels until nightfall.

And it was the sixth time that Jonathan had stated his disgust of camels since morning dawned.

It was true that his own mount must have been one of the most foul-tempered animals Rick had ever seen. It seemed to hate Jonathan as much as Jonathan hated it, and never lost an occasion to show it. When it wasn’t trying to shake off its rider and make him taste a mouthful of sand, it was straying from the trail and wandering off, despite Jonathan repeatedly pulling on the reins to make it get back in line.

So yes, maybe he did have grounds for complaining.

But that didn’t mean he had to do it all the time.

Rick had absolutely no intention to swap; his camel was a strong, steady old beast and he had taken something of a liking to it. He sure as hell wasn’t giving it away in exchange for some damn crazy animal that didn’t like the thought of a human sitting on the hump on its back.

“I say, Rick?” The American turned back to Jonathan, who looked normal again, if a little pissed on the side about the camel. “Do you think they’d mind giving us a drop to drink?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve run out already?”

“Mmh, actually, yes, I have. But I’ll have you know that the water-skin was already half empty when they gave it to me.”

“I’d say it was half full, Jonathan,” Rick said, grinning. For his part, Jonathan looked for a second as though he was about to stick out his tongue at him. Then he cracked a small smile.

“You and your humour. Happy to be back in the desert, are you?”

“Not really, but for the moment we don’t really have a choice. Anyway, about that water – want some of mine?”

Jonathan seemed to consider, but shook his head. “Actually, I was thinking about something stronger. Along the lines of brandy, or gin or something.”

Rick couldn’t help stealing a glance at his brother-in-law, frowning. He almost had a mind to ask Jonathan if he was all right; but as he appeared perfectly normal, the American hid a smile and said, quite seriously, “Well, you can always ask ‘em.”

Jonathan gave a firm nod, apparently unaware that Rick was enjoying himself perhaps a little too much. He somehow managed to get his camel to slow down to come near the guy behind them, one of Hamilton’s anonymous agents. The guy looked mostly unaffected by the heat despite his suit, and supremely ignored the two of them.

“Erm, excuse me?” Few things could deter Jonathan from a quest for halfway decent booze. A sweating spook with a scowl and a gun was not one of them. “Would you by chance be in possession of something to drink? Preferably something with alcohol in it, if it’s all the same to you.”

The guy stared at him for a full minute, long enough to make Rick wonder if the sun hadn’t fried his brains. Then something flashed in his eyes, and he spoke coldly but politely:

“Why, no problem at all, sir. How would you like some whiskey?”

“I have to say that a G&T would be a bit more refreshing, but if that’s the best you’ve got…” Jonathan replied, looking a bit dumbfounded.

Rick began to shake with silent laughter. He found it even more difficult to suppress his mirth when their ‘guard’ switched expressions and snapped, “Of course not! There’s water if you’re thirsty. And you’d be less thirsty if you didn’t keep talking all the time.”

From the corner of his eye, Rick saw Jonathan open his mouth, then glare at the guard. “Just asking.”

The guy shrugged, and slowed his camel to fall back behind the two without another word. It was only then that Jonathan seemed to realise that Rick, who could barely suppress his laughter, was in fact making fun of him just a little.

“Well, that’s nice!” he said indignantly as Rick finally burst out laughing. “Not very supportive of you. To think you’re family.”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming!”

“As a matter of fact, no, I didn’t. I was just asking something politely.”

Rick shook his head, still grinning. “Trust an Englishman to be polite to the guys who kidnapped him. You’re weird.”

Jonathan threw him a sideways glance. “You know, Rick, sometimes I really do wonder whether years of living in England somehow improved your behaviour in civilised society.”

“Well? Did it, in your opinion?”

“Not at all.” It was Jonathan’s turn to grin as he added, as an afterthought, “But I found out a while ago that it’s perfectly fine as is.”

Silence settled for a little while. It was comfortable enough, but all-encompassing as it can only get in the middle of the desert, with just the cloudless, endless sky above your head, and the equally endless sand of the dunes beneath your feet. It didn’t really help either that the only other human beings with them were guys who let themselves be led by someone hell-bent on mass destruction.

That last part aside, Rick was beginning to re-adjust to his surroundings: the scorching heat, the suffocating dust, the blinding white light reverberated by the dunes all around them. Spending three or four years as part of the Cairo garrison of the French Foreign Legion meant spending a lot of time patrolling the desert, fighting everything that resembled desert tribes striving for independence from either the French or the English, and, basically, biting a lot of sand all day – and night – long. Niggling conscience aside, it quickly became rather dull.

Life had immediately gained some spice since the first time he had laid eyes on Evelyn. Not exactly from the very first moment, because the next, he’d been dangling from the end of a rope; he had only come to understand how much ‘dull’ was to be banned from his vocabulary when he had looked up, still trying to recover the breath he had been deprived of, into the fine-featured, lovely, and quite smug face of Evelyn Carnahan. Ever since _that_ moment, there never had been a single dull moment in his life. Little moments of peace and quiet didn’t count: Evy and he had managed to keep those, even when Alex had barely been a bundle of sheets who kicked, screamed, and needed looking after almost every single minute of every day.

But dull? Never. Not with Evy, nor Alex.

And, judging from the sudden yelp on his left that made Rick start, nor with Jonathan either. Or maybe the camel was to blame, as he saw it canter across the desert without, seemingly, any agreement from his rider, who was struggling to remain on the saddle, pulling at the reins with all his might and screaming bloody murder.

Rick shook his head with a grin he couldn’t hold back, and set off at top speed to catch the escaping camel before one of Hamilton’s cronies decided to get his gun and shoot the beast… or the rider.

* * *

Izzy’s new dirigible was definitely cosier than his old one, Evelyn reflected as she gazed down at the silent, yellow-white dunes flattened by the afternoon sun. There were cushions tied on the seats, the fancy paint made everything shiny and new. The deck was longer, as well, though not long enough to lose sight of Alex, who had apparently decided to explore every nook and cranny of it. Even the tea somehow tasted better.

Evelyn put her cup in her saucer, careful not to send it flying down into the desert, and shifted her gaze to the Nile, far below the airship. An eerie, uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu had crept over her as the dirigible flew away from Fort Brydon and Cairo into the desert. She was hauntingly reminded of the last time she had seen the Pyramids of Giza from this height, as the sun set over Egypt, while she worried herself sick over the kidnapping of her son. At least, at the time, Rick’s strong, loving embrace had been around her, as if to keep the fear at bay. She missed him, right now, so much that something tightened painfully in her chest and her stomach. The heat was crushing, the sun implacable, but she couldn’t help shivering slightly, as if a cold wind brushed past her.

Two years ago, on a similar dirigible, she had remembered – or had been reminded of – her past life as Nefertiri, daughter of Seti the 1st, the Pharaoh Imhotep and Anck-su-namun had murdered. As the otherworldly mist had hit the ship, she had ceased to be Evelyn O’Connell, wife of Rick O’Connell, daughter of Salwa and John Carnahan; she had re-lived the events of the night, three thousand years ago, when a girl’s life had been shattered as her father was assassinated before her eyes.

It had taken an almost-tumble over the railings for her to come back to herself. She remembered little of what had happened between the moment when she had all but thrown herself overboard and when she had recovered all her senses; Rick’s warm arms, the fabric of his shirt and his reassuring smell, Jonathan asserting, with an odd quiver in his voice, that their father died years and years ago in a plane crash, the bright eyes in the middle of the dark blur that was all she could see of Ardeth Bay, Izzy’s gangly figure here and there to bring a tea tray with four steaming cups…

Since then, the events of Ahm Shere, plus some explaining from Ardeth and some researching on her part had clarified a lot of it. But she had had other dreams. At first she had dismissed them, thinking it only natural that she should have nightmares about dying at Ahm Shere; but there was something about those dreams that felt… foreign. She remembered a strange ring on her finger that bore a cartouche she couldn’t quite decipher; she remembered her husband’s frantic, desperate eyes above her, but those eyes were jet-black, not blue as Rick’s were. Alex and Jonathan were nowhere in sight. And what was more, neither were Imhotep nor Anck-su-namun.

Instead, at the other end of the dagger she sometimes still felt sinking lethally into her stomach at night, was a man’s tanned face, with ice-cold black eyes lined with kohl, a black Egyptian-style wig, and a thin mouth twisted in a cruel grin. The face always seemed to shine with triumph. It never failed to haunt her for a few minutes after waking up in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat, her heart pounding, feeling lost and scared and furious at the same time. Usually, it was then that she noticed again her husband’s steady, deep rumble of a breathing beside her, and she snuggled against him, seeking a little peace.

The beat of Evelyn’s heart quickened at the mere memory of those false nightmares. False, because she had a feeling, deep inside, that she was reliving something different from her murder two years ago. Those ‘dreams’ had the same feeling about them as the visions she had begun to have at the beginning of the last Year of the Scorpion. And right now, on this dirigible, there was only one man who could give her any answers.

She glanced at Alex, who was busy bombarding Izzy with questions about ‘Dee’, and turned to Ardeth, who had finished tying a small paper to the foot of the honey-brown falcon he had called Neith.

“Ardeth…” she said in a low voice after a sharp intake of breath. “Do you know how Nefertiri died?”

Ardeth looked up from the bird and up at her in surprise. “I know what the Elders were willing to tell,” he said carefully. “Why do you ask?”

“Why do you answer a question by a question?” said Evy, smiling a little. Her smile must have been a bit unsteady, because he let the falcon fly away and turned to her, frowning.

“You’ve had other dreams.”

It wasn’t a question. Evelyn nodded. “Yes, I’ve dreamt of Ahm Shere every now and then. But there’s something confusing about those dreams, because things aren’t quite the same. I know Rick is there, but he’s the only one I recognise. And it’s not Anck-su-namun who is stabbing me, but a man I don’t know at all. What do you make of it?”

Ardeth stared at her for a second, then his sharp features relaxed ever so slightly. “What makes you think I have the answer to everything?” Evelyn waited, knowing that something was still to come. The next moment, his face was sombre again. “Well,” he began slowly, “it is said that Princess Nefertiri died at Ahm Shere.”

Evy, who was more or less expecting something along those lines, couldn’t help a pang, as of fear. “What happened?” she asked in a whisper. Ardeth lowered his voice.

“You certainly know that Nefertiri, after Seti’s death, had become the guardian of the Bracelet of Anubis. Two years ago, those memories led you to the temple where you found the Bracelet. Nefertiri was a very good guardian, it seemed; she was clever, a cunning strategist, but three years after Seti’s death, there was treason among the guards and the Bracelet was stolen.

“The man who stole the Bracelet called himself Narmer, which, as you probably know, is the name of the first Pharaoh of the First Dynasty, the successor of the Scorpion King. It seemed he intended to bring the Bracelet to Ahm Shere, and waken the Scorpion King. Nefertiri, hearing of the theft, rushed after him, leaving the Pharaoh – her much younger brother Rameses – behind in Thebes and taking only her personal escort with her. They were fifty strong men, but only one came back to Thebes a few months after.

“His name was Semerheb, and his twin brother Semerkhet was also among Nefertiri’s personal escort.”

Evelyn’s heart raced at this point of the tale. _Semerkhet…_ She was almost certain that she had already heard the name somewhere. It felt so familiar…

“He told of a race across the desert, in the hopes to catch Narmer before he reached Ahm Shere, if indeed he knew where to find it, and take the Bracelet from him. They managed to cross the cursed oasis around the Pyramid with heavy losses to Nefertiri’s escort, but they arrived at the foot of the Pyramid before him. It was a trap, as they soon discovered, for Narmer was hidden and sprang upon Nefertiri with a knife. Semerheb then told how his brother Semerkhet was devastated by this murder, and killed Narmer with his own hands before he even reached the entrance of the pyramid.

“The rest of the escort brought back the body of the princess and the Bracelet of Anubis through the oasis, but when they finally reached the open desert, only one remained alive. Semerheb had lived to see his brother die saving his life from the creatures that dwelt in the oasis, and he vowed he would at least fulfil his duty to his princess. Fortunately, it happened that a troop of the Pharaoh’s army passed soon after, and collected the body of Nefertiri and Semerheb, who barely drew breath. He recovered, and lived to eventually found the Second Tribe of the Medjai.”

Images from her visions rushed in front of Evy’s eyes, following Ardeth’s words. Suddenly it all seemed to make sense: the ring with her father’s cartouche that she now remembered clearly, looking into her murderer’s eyes as he twisted the dagger into her stomach… And something deeper, the absolute certitude that the desperate black eyes above her as she lay dying, pleading, begging her not to die belonged to Rick, and none other. She lifted her eyes to meet Ardeth’s.

“What kind of relationship did Nefertiri and Semerkhet share?”

“Do you have memories of this too?” Ardeth asked after a short silence.

Evelyn felt herself blushing. “Not quite,” she said, feeling self-conscious. “In fact, it’s more like impressions, feelings – nothing certain.”

Ardeth stared at her. Something in his unblinking black eyes seemed to dance with quiet amusement. It felt funny to think that those same eyes had looked so deadly serious a few seconds ago.

After a minute, she gave in. “All right, all right,” she said, the tips of her ears quite hot. “I have serious reason to think that Rick might be a reincarnation of Semerkhet. But if my memory’s right, you once said that Rick is a Medjai – you’re saying now he might also have been one in a previous life?”

Ardeth took his time to answer, and when he did, he looked serious again, though not so grave as he was a few minutes ago. “Think about it, Evelyn. Semerkhet was a Medjai, and Nefertiri’s personal escort was composed only of trusted Medjai who guarded her in Thebes. If indeed O’Connell is a reincarnation of Semerkhet, then he was protecting you in your past life, just as O’Connell does now.”

The thought that Rick and her could be a sort of ‘match made in Heaven’, as they say, certainly sounded very romantic, but Evelyn couldn’t help narrowing her eyes slightly at Ardeth. “So everything’s already written and History just likes to repeat itself?”

Ardeth gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know – maybe it’s entirely a matter of belief. But there are some things that find an echo in the history of the world, and I personally do not quite believe in coincidences.”

Evelyn’s stomach did a very unpleasant flip. “An echo… Ardeth, do you mean I should have died at Ahm Shere and shared the same fate as Nefertiri?”

“Evelyn, history repeating itself or not, it all comes down to choices in the end, and the people who make them. It might be that, if it had been just you and O’Connell in that pyramid against Imhotep and Anck-su-namun, you would not have come out of there alive.”

_Of course…_ She had only come out of there alive because Alex had read from the Book of the Dead to resurrect her while Jonathan drew Anck-su-namun’s attention from him. So the presence of her son and her brother, and, in a way, the presence of the two mummies – who carried the Book of the Dead – had triggered something that had altered the story and changed her fate.

“Alex and Jonathan…” she muttered, smiling a little. “They made the difference. I didn’t see the two of them in any of my visions because they just _weren’t_ there, but they were two years ago…”

“And this is why you are here as well.” Ardeth smiled in turn. “It takes very little to change fate.”

Evelyn eased herself on the seat, thinking about many things at once. Then she looked again at Ardeth, and gave a genuine grin.

“And this is ‘only what the Elders have told you’? You must have a very good memory!”

Ardeth stared at her for a second, then his teeth bared in a similar grin. “The Elders are very good story-tellers. And I must admit I have a fondness for good story-telling.”

Evelyn’s smile broadened. Then he rose with an apology, and crossed over to the pilot. Izzy was talking animatedly to Alex, and from the words Evelyn could gather from where she sat, it was some sort of strange story about the Nile, a boat, and a herd of half-wild camels.

“I must meet my fellow Medjai at this precise spot,” Ardeth was saying when Evelyn walked closer to the small group. “Do you think we can reach it by nightfall?”

Izzy frowned down at Ardeth’s tattooed finger on the map. “Dunno… sounds pretty far out from where we are now. I guess if I could get that boiler hot enough, with our weight, it’d take us a coupla hours. Bit after nightfall.”

If Ardeth was disappointed by this bit of news, he didn’t let anything show on this face. He only nodded, and left Izzy with a short but polite, “Do your best. This meeting is important.”

“I bet he’s going to wait for that falcon now,” said Alex, looking briefly at his mother before returning to Izzy for the end of the story.

Evelyn wondered exactly why this meeting was so important. She did have an inkling, but deep down, she hoped she was wrong.

* * *

The sun was setting on the desert where Hamilton’s men had settled for the night. The most beautiful part was over, and now the huge sky hanging over everybody’s head was turning a very deep blue that made Jonathan feel small looking at it. He always preferred the first part, the one where the sun sent a different kind of light into every direction, lighting up the shreds of clouds before the night engulfed them and turned everything dark.

His favourite moment of the day had always been dawn anyway.

Maybe it was the immensity of the sky, or night settling over the camp, or the slight wind turning cold, or perhaps it was the fact that everyone around him seemed busy doing all sorts of things you do in a camp – except the couple of agents who were just sitting a few feet away with their revolvers in their hands, watching him – but Jonathan was beginning to feel a touch melancholic, and possibly a little bit lonely. There was nothing he could do but sit there, watching the blokes in front of him watch him with the grim expression that seemed to be the only one they knew, and gaze around him at the others pitching tents and carrying sleeping bags all over the place. Rick had gone off in search for some food for his camel and all that Jonathan knew about his own camel was that it had been fed; it was now sleeping a few feet away, its big hump rising and falling with the rhythm of its breath. _Useless bugger._

“I hear he’s been givin’ you trouble all day long, eh?”

Jonathan started slightly and glanced up to his left to see Tommy standing there, his hands in his pockets. The wind ruffled his blond mop, making his fringe fall into his eyes, and for a second, he looked like the round-faced boy whose main goals in life were getting three meals a day, having fun, and putting a smile on the face of every pretty girl he saw.

Jonathan felt very tired all of a sudden.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Just my luck. They’ve given me the only beast who just enjoys making people suffer. Or maybe it simply hates me, I don’t know.” He paused for a second, and added with a shrug, “And I don’t give a damn, either.”

Tom didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and the silence between them was filled with the various noises of people bustling about around them. Jonathan looked at them for a while, not sure if he wanted to meet Tom’s eyes.

The silence grew uncomfortable.

“Look, Jon…”

Jonathan looked up again to see Tom, definitely uneasy, trying to find his words. It didn’t seem to work very well, as he gave a sort of wince and finished with something like defeat in his tone, “You’re not gonna hit me again if I just sit there, are you?”

A bitter sort of chuckle was stuck in Jonathan’s throat, but he gestured to his old friend to sit in a manner he hoped looked casual. After Tom had settled himself on the ground, Jonathan asked in a low voice, “Did it really hurt that much?”

“Still does,” Tom replied with the shadow of a grin. Up close, his jaw did look a little green and yellow in patches. “I had no idea you could hit that hard.”

“Neither did I.”

“Been practising then?”

“Not really. I guess you just tend to bring that out in people.”

“I beg to differ. Last time I checked, you were the best.”

“The best at what, punching?”

Tom’s teeth showed white in the growing dark. “Nah, gettin’ punched.”

That did it. Corny as hell, but it did it. Jonathan felt a fit of irresistible giggles break through whatever was stuck in his throat, and the next second, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, making Tom jump a foot in the air and stare at him with a very startled expression in his brown eyes.

“What? Am I that funny?” he asked, looking dumbfounded, as though wondering whether Jonathan had finally lost his last marbles.

Jonathan couldn’t really blame him. “Don’t worry, you’re not,” he gasped when he finally managed to take in a long, deep breath. Calming down, he proceeded to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes while Tom cracked a small smile and waited.

“I’m still mad at you,” he reminded Tom firmly when he trusted his voice to sound serious enough. “Don’t you forget that.”

Tom gave a shrug, and his eyes wandered to the tents in front of them. “Not likely.”

For a brief moment, he looked just as tired and cold and lonely as Jonathan felt. Still not looking directly at his old friend, he muttered in a very low voice, barely moving his lips, “Jon… What if I said that these Medjai you told me about knew Hamilton’s intentions and where he intends to go?”

This was so unexpected that for a moment, Jonathan couldn’t say anything. His breath caught in his throat, and a million thoughts began to spin in his mind.

This was very good news. _Very_ good news. He had tried to think of an escape plan all day long, and he was pretty sure that Rick had had the same line of thought. But what was the point of trying to escape in the middle of the desert with no directions and no help?

On the other hand, it wasn’t that reassuring. While Jonathan knew perfectly well that Ardeth would never put Rick’s and his lives at risk on purpose, he was also very much aware that the Medjai did everything they could to keep people like that Hamilton from dangerous places. And even if the pyramid and the oasis were both buried so deep in the sand of the desert that Jonathan could never be able to tell where all of this had happened, Ahm Shere _was_ a dangerous place. And Hamilton was just as dangerous.

“When d’you think they’ll come?” he breathed, peering at the horizon for the familiar black-clad figures.

“I dunno,” replied Tom’s equally low voice beside him. “Only thing I did was to go to the right guy and pass the word. I’ve never even seen one of them. What are they like?”

Jonathan couldn’t help a snigger. “Don’t you think you should have asked that before inviting them to the party?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I –” Tom stopped abruptly, and lowered his head, frowning. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Don’t know, it sounded like… hooves or something.”

It was Jonathan’s turn to frown. Tom’s sharp ears had saved them many troubles back in the day, but the sound of hooves in a camp filled with camels was not entirely out-of-place. Besides, he couldn’t hear anything of the sort.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m not sure, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking you! Sounded like horses trampling the sand. Can’t you hear it?”

To Jonathan, the air was still filled with the same talking, shouting, occasional camel roaring, neighing, and possibly the crackling of the fire a few feet away. And the snores of his own bloody-minded camel. But apart from that –

_Wait._ Something didn’t sound quite right. Camels didn’t neigh… horses did.

“Tom?”

“Yeah?”

Something very odd twisted Jonathan’s stomach. He had found himself on the wrong side of a Medjai ‘warning’ or two before, and it had resulted in blood every time. His brain yelled at him to do something intelligent, like run or hide, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him that _he_ didn’t need to hide… but Tom did.

“Can you still run for your life as quickly as we used to?”

Tom turned to him, visibly peeved. “I’m only six months older than you, old man.”

“Then _run_, you idiot!”

Just as Jonathan shouted, a black-clad figure riding a horse that looked unnaturally tall in the twilight burst in through the small space between the two tents in front of them. Tom stared round-eyed at the horse, its rider, and the long, pale scimitar he was wielding. He opened his mouth, closed it, and ran in the opposite direction while Jonathan just remained standing there for a short moment, shaken. Trusting the ever-resourceful Liverpudlian to take care of himself, he turned on his heels and hurried back to the camp, hoping he could find Rick or Ardeth in this noisy mess.

And a mess it was. Sand was flying everywhere under the hooves of both horses and camels in the red light of the few fires burning here and there, left unattended. The agents certainly had a lot on their hands, trying to dodge the Medjai’s gunfire while looking for their own weapons. A lot of people were running everywhere among the tents, shouting orders or yelling for help – or simply screaming their heads off.

Jonathan stopped near the remains of a tent in tatters to take a look at the camp. Some Medjai were on foot now, stopping some Englishmen from grabbing their guns, knocking others with one solid punch on the head or in the stomach; the grim fierceness of the desert warriors seemed strengthened by the few black-clad unmoving bodies on the ground, mirroring some that wore dark Westerner suits.

A movement behind him made him turn around; in a flash, he saw an agent running directly towards him, with his face twisted by either fury or terror. Jonathan didn’t wait to find out. He left hastily his relative shelter and scurried away without even looking in front of him, yelling the first thing that crossed his mind: “_Rick!_ Where are you?”

When he finally focused on something, it was the long barrel of a very black, very shiny, and very scary-looking pistol pointed right at the spot between his eyes. Right behind it were the equally black, shining, scary-looking eyes of the agent Hamilton had called Baine, who was grinning broadly as he cocked the gun and muttered, “Gotcha!”

Jonathan skidded to a halt but, carried away by his own momentum, bumped hard into the dark suit behind the gun and knocked the both of them to the ground. Baine didn’t get back up immediately, so Jonathan reached and picked up his gun. Still a little bit dazed, he shook his head, spit out a mouthful of sand and, looking up, saw that the man still running behind him was very close… too close. His pursuer backpedalled to avoid them but failed and fell flat on Jonathan’s back. The shock drove Jonathan’s breath from his lungs; his head hit the ground again and he swallowed another mouthful of sand. It seemed he even had some in his ears, because suddenly the incoming sounds seemed muffled.

“Bugger,” he muttered, spitting sand and brushing dirt out of his eyes. “Do I hate Mondays.”

Somehow he managed to totter back to his feet, his hand still grasping Baine’s gun; chaos still raged around him, and there was nobody in sight he recognised. A sort of growl made him look down to the two agents sprawled in the dust: Baine was slowly raising his head, his mouth and his eyes half-open. Jonathan quickly sent him back to sleep with an enthusiastic punch in the face.

“_You_ – you stay here,” he stammered as if Baine could hear him, shaking slightly and his legs wobbling from both fright and excitement from this small victory. Taking a deep breath, he continued his search for Rick or Ardeth.

He found both. Problem was, they weren’t alone.

Inside a small circle of tents in the middle of which a fire was glowing very red, Rick was kneeling, fury burning in his face, his jaws clenched, a trickle of blood running down a side of his head, with a gun resting on the back of his neck. Jonathan fell back against a tent, aghast; his eyes went up the gun to the arm holding it firmly to the shoulder to the grim but triumphant-looking pale face of Hamilton. A few feet away, Ardeth stood straight, very tall, and very still, scimitar in hand, while the fire made shadows dance everywhere.

Chaos still raged, but time seemed to have stopped for the four of them; Jonathan held his breath, huddled in his flimsy shelter and jostled from time to time by people who didn’t notice him. As far as he could tell, he was one of only a handful of witnesses.

“Now, since we understand each other,” Hamilton was saying, his low voice sending shudders up Jonathan’s spine, “you will back up and do exactly as I say. If, by chance, you care in the slightest about this man or the other, you will swear you won’t approach us again, or I will shoot him without an ounce of remorse. They are valuable, but not so much that I cannot dispense with them if I wish. I’ll leave the decision to you.”

Ardeth had his back on Jonathan, who couldn’t see his face and did not know what to make of what he did see. His heart thumping so loudly in his chest he was surprised nobody else seemed to hear it, he kept staring at the scene among the tents, where sound seemed to have been turned off as you do a wireless. As his eyes settled on Rick, the American caught his gaze, and in a flash, took in the gun he was still holding.

“_Shoot him, now!_” he mouthed, his round blue eyes flashing for a second to Hamilton standing next to him. “_Come _on_, shoot!_”

Jonathan felt his mouth dry abruptly. Suddenly very aware of his cold, clammy hands, and, rather absurdly, of the hungry rumbling of his stomach – he hadn’t eaten since lunch – he stood there, petrified.

He could do it, he knew he could. He had both the marksmanship and the experience. In fact he _had_ taken more hazardous shots before, if only in that bloody jungle a couple of years ago, standing on that ledge with Evy to cover Rick’s, Alex’s, and Ardeth’s backs. Afterwards, of course, the only thing that prevented him from saying goodbye to everything he’d eaten in the last three days had been the pressing need to run like hell, but he hadn’t done too badly at the moment. You didn’t become Fox and Hounds’ Grand Champion three times in a row without a keen eye and a steady hand, and Jonathan knew he could occasionally count on having both. Shooting at clay pigeons had frankly been a relief after almost two years spent shooting at people.

Right now, though, he couldn’t tear his eyes off the gun snug against Rick’s neck. Hamilton, imprudent fool he was, had his finger on the trigger. It would only take a sudden movement, a trifle, nothing at all for him to press it and send a bullet into Rick’s throat.

If Jonathan missed, even by a speck…

If he didn’t, but Hamilton’s finger gave the slightest twitch…

The mental picture went through his brain like a flash. It left him drenched in sweat, his heart pounding in his throat, feeling as though he had completely lost feeling in his forearms.

All he could do was stare back at Rick’s blinking eyes, round as saucers.

Rick was not somebody something like this could frighten, not when it happened to him instead of people he cared about. His fear had two settings: supreme calm and righteous anger.

“_What the hell are you waiting for!?_” he mouthed, probably none too happy with the sensation of the gun against his neck.

Swallowing hard, Jonathan shook his head ever so slightly, and Rick opened his mouth in utter disbelief. At the same moment, Ardeth re-sheathed his scimitar and took one step back. The scraping sound of the slender piece of steel resounded around the camp, echoing a few sighs of relief on the part of the small number of agents who had gathered around the scene. One didn’t let out a sound, though. Unbeknownst to Jonathan, Tom had spotted him, and was currently staring at him with wide brown eyes.

Ardeth and Rick shared a brief but intense look. Ardeth backed away without breaking eye contact with Hamilton, who didn’t move his gun, but who now wore a smug expression on his face, illuminated by the glowing fire. The Medjai Commander mounted his horse, called his men to him in Arabic, and set off with a last strange look at the chief agent.

After the dust had settled in the devastated camp, Hamilton stepped back from Rick and put his gun back in his belt, within easy reach. Rick stumbled up. An agent made the mistake of walking by a little too close to him; the American grabbed him by the collar and decked him in one fantastic blow that sent the guy flying a few feet away. He then strode across the camp to where Jonathan was and didn’t even look at him when he stormed by, his face set. Jonathan did not look at Rick either, still staring at the spot he and Hamilton had been seconds ago.

* * *

Jon didn’t move at all for the next fifteen minutes, after which Tom finally gathered enough nerve to come closer and open his mouth to say something, even the first thing that would come to his mind, to break the tension.

“Don’t – say – _anything_.”

There was something metallic in Jon’s voice that made Tom back up in spite of himself. Not knowing what to do, he made to put a hand on his old friend’s shoulder, but thought better of it and walked away.

Before turning round a corner, he risked a last glance at the pale figure, unmoving and stiff as a board, who still had his back on him.

Jon didn’t look back.


	13. Those Left Behind

The heat had been growing steadily for a few hours now. Despite the fact that the room she was kept in was in a sort of basement, with no other light than the small window that gave onto what she thought was a sunlit corridor, Elizabeth Ferguson was starting to feel very uncomfortable. These were always the hours in the day where she regretted the most her cool, green Dorset, where the end of July meant just enough heat to enjoy a cool house and a fresh drink. The water she was provided with here was tepid at best.

Then again, at least she had something to quench her thirst. If there was something she had learned in this past week, it was to take what was offered and make do with it, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Elizabeth recalled with a wince the first time she had been told that there were no sanitary installations that she could use, except for a chamber pot and a basin of hot water in the morning. At first, she had protested, arguing that in the middle of the 20th century it was an absolute scandal that a woman, even a prisoner, couldn’t have access to modern facilities… But after a while, she simply couldn’t wait any longer and accepted the pot, humiliating though it was to go through your business while a man outside waited for you to finish so that he might take it away.

She only had the bare necessities. She had not changed her clothes for a week, and in addition to the physical discomfort they were starting to smell. She did have a quick wash every morning, but only to put her old clothes back on. Her work suit looked now long past its best with dust and sweat, and her new stockings were laddered. Elizabeth most regretted the loss of her stockings, as it had been a gift from her husband just before he left for Egypt.

To think that that particular Tuesday had begun so well. The postman had caught her just before she left for work with a postcard from Tom, a lovely picture of pyramids and the Sphinx with a few words on the back that said he loved her and wished she were there. His work at the Antique Research Department sometimes sent him to exotic places, Egypt in particular, and he always sent her the sweetest postcards.

She didn’t notice the long dark-coloured car straight away. She did notice it was parked under a road sigh for Bournemouth when the driver asked her for directions to that very same town. Nevertheless, she approached and answered politely, especially as the gentleman behind the wheel was very civil.

What happened just afterwards, she had no idea. The only thing that stuck in her mind was a violent, dizzying smell that reminded her of hospitals. When she had woken up, she had felt weak and sick, petrified with fear, and prayed that she had remembered to turn off the gas before she left.

Elizabeth had no idea where she was kept, except that it was probably in Egypt – in Cairo, more precisely. Her captors had given her an Egyptian newspaper, dated from the day before her kidnapping, to hold why they took a picture just after she woke up. After that, there had been a boat, a train, a plane, and another plane, always tied up, gagged, and blindfolded. She had talked with the American – Mr O’Connell – last Saturday. If she went by the rhythm and number of the meals, it was now Tuesday morning.

Keeping track of time was so difficult when you didn’t have your usual everyday habits to rely on.

That strange conversation had left her with a profound sense of shock. All she had been told was that Tom had something to do that he was quite likely to refuse, and that the stakes were so high she had been brought here as a guarantee. For days, she had wondered what those stakes could be, and how involved Tom was. The American’s story did answer some of these questions, but in such a way that she almost refused to believe it. How could a simple diamond, big though it was, be so dangerous? If the Research Department wanted it so badly, why couldn’t they just buy it from that museum? And – and this was the question that haunted her most – what _exactly_ was the nature of Tom’s job? What kind of job could force a man to do such a bad turn to an old friend?

This Mr O’Connell had really sounded angry, almost hurt. Elizabeth herself could hardly believe that, because of Tom, this man had been kidnapped, parted from his wife and his son. That, to her, seemed about the cruellest thing that could happen to a family man. Goodness knew Tom and she had tried, unsuccessfully, to become parents.

What she really had trouble picturing was her husband, her Tom, playing an active part in what looked like a villainous theft and helping to imprison a friend. Especially Jonathan Carnahan.

Those two… Elizabeth couldn’t help a smile at the thought of the pair as they were in university, what seemed like ages ago. They had been close, nigh inseparable, and it hadn’t taken long for the three of them to grow very close, as well. Years had passed since, and while she and Tom had been lucky enough to meet again afterwards and not let go of each other this time, they had passed without a word to or from her other ‘suitor’. After the war, he and his sister Evelyn had moved to Egypt once the latter had finished her studies, and Elizabeth had no idea when, or if, they had come back to England.

How many times had she heard the expression ‘Those were the days’ from some old toothless granny recalling the golden times of her youth? Now Elizabeth could truly comprehend what they meant. She was perfectly happy with Tom, the both of them earned a living of their own quite decently and she loved their home, but life lacked the excitement of her university years. Enjoying the simple fact of being alive was so easy, back then; it had been a time of freedom, new and wondrous, and a thousand things to see, do, and feel, including a few she had not been warned of in the slightest and had made her blush at the drop of a hat.

Not that she’d been given many reasons to be flustered before she met Tom and Jonathan. She had been diffident and rather withdrawn as a young girl, and had gone unnoticed by nearly all the ‘young gentlemen’ of Oxford who were looking for a lady friend.

In fact, the only two boys her age who had looked at her – really _looked_ at her – were the two students competing for the worst reputation in their own university. Knowing this had made her quite wary before she’d made their acquaintance properly until her cousin Arthur had assured her they were really decent lads after all. While ‘decent’ might not have been the right word for it, they had made her laugh, they had bolstered her confidence, and they had been – surprisingly for those who did not know them like she had – unfailingly kind. And yes, they were both funny and a little ridiculous sometimes, yes they liked to brag about deeds and feats of questionable morality, but oh, had they made her feel alive!

Elizabeth shook her head. Those were the days, indeed, but it was no good dwelling on them with regret. She had spent two days turning over the conversation with Mr O’Connell in her mind, in vain. She still had no idea what exactly was going on, and especially _why_.

From this disheartening situation was dawning a determination such as she had never felt before. This just Would Not Do. She was reaching her breaking point, and the patience that was one of her major traits was wearing off slowly but inexorably. Especially when she thought of Tom: lies or no lies, Elizabeth knew her husband, and she also knew that the people who hadn’t hesitated to kidnap her would probably stop at nothing to get what they wanted, and Tom had principles. He was a good man, and she had had all the time in the world to worry about what they might do to him – or her – if things went awry. Problem was, she just could not see a way out.

Unless…

Footsteps began to echo in the corridor just as an idea began to take shape in her mind.

This was madness. There was no way she could pull it off. She was a poor actress, definitely no heroine, and her courage had strict limits. Then again, Elizabeth could see no other way out, and even if the idea seemed downright crazy, she knew she really had to try something, for the sake of the husband she loved as well as an old friend’s.

The footfall was coming closer. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and collapsed on the spot, moaning slightly and clasping her stomach, and overall trying to appear in great pain.

From her spot on the ground, she heard the clinking of keys and the creaking of a lock, then saw a pair of big feet almost running at her and a body dropping in a crouching position.

“Jesus,” she heard, muttered between clenched teeth. “Er… Ma’am? Are you all right?”

“Don’t… don’t know,” she groaned, hoping fervently that the newcomer would buy it, all the while looking for the weapon he was bound to have somewhere. “Hurts…”

“Where?” he asked with surprising gentleness, a hand on her shoulder and the other on the ground for support. She shook his hand off with the pretence of a coughing fit she managed to pull off despite her shaky breathing.

“Do you want me to call somebody? A doctor?” he insisted with the same awkward sweetness that made her think he must be rather young. She shook her head, trying to calm the pounding of her heart in her chest, and as she looked up her breath caught in her throat. There it was. A big-looking gun was hanging rather loosely from a holster under his jacket, just inches from her!

She pushed on her elbows as though to get up right away, and he did exactly what she hoped he would do. He put both his hands on her shoulders – “Whoa, easy there” – and doing this, uncovered the gun, which tipped to Elizabeth’s hand as if it wanted to jump out of its holster. Which was more or less what happened.

Faster than she had thought she would be, Elizabeth stood up in front of the man, his revolver in her hands that felt too small for it. She hadn’t held a gun in nearly twenty years.

He just goggled at her, as though he had yet to grasp the reality of the situation.

“Stand up,” she said, recalling everything that had happened in this past week for her voice to sound appropriately cold. “And step back.”

The man staring at her with wide eyes was probably younger than her by a decade. The flaming red curly hair flying around his freckled face made him look vulnerable, almost friendly. He did what he was told, apparently too shocked to do otherwise. But Elizabeth didn’t abandon her wariness; nor did her grip on the gun loosen one bit.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

The young man’s mouth moved wordlessly for a second, then he replied, “Stephens. B—Benjamin Stephens.”

“Well, then, Mr Stephens,” she said, speaking slowly and detaching each syllable, “I have a question I’d like you to answer.”

“S—sure,” Benjamin Stephens stammered, still bemused. “What is it?”

Elizabeth came one step closer, trying to keep her hands from shaking, and locking her eyes onto his, she asked quietly, “_Where is my husband?_”

* * *

It had been obvious, from the moment Evelyn saw Ardeth come back from the Medjai camp last night, that everything had not happened according to plan. Even now, his eyes were flashing furiously and a dark frown was on his face as he sat in a corner of the dirigible pouring over maps and thinking hard. Evy wondered, as she sipped her morning tea, if he had even slept a wink at all last night.

To be honest, she had held a faint wild hope to see him come back with Rick and Jonathan trailing behind, tired and worn perhaps, but alive and unscathed. It had been a disappointment, especially for Alex, who had kept watch until he just could not stay awake any longer. The look on his face as he woke up to find the dirigible still moving and no Dad or Uncle Jon in sight had torn Evelyn’s heart, particularly since he fought so hard to keep a stiff upper lip, which was terrible to see in his still-childish face. Her boy was only ten, for God’s sake. He shouldn’t have to bear things like that. Right now, he was leaning on his elbows on the rail, staring at the great yellow dunes, flattened under the sun, that moved along under the dirigible. She couldn’t see his face, but she could tell that the enduring situation was nerve-racking for him. It was bad enough for her.

She walked over and sat quietly beside him. His ruffled blond hair, darker than it had been when he was younger, flew into his face, reminding Evelyn of his father’s whenever a slight breeze stirred.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, her heart in her throat. Alex gave a slight nod.

“Yeah.” He said it so absent-mindedly he could as well have uttered ‘no’. Evy didn’t budge. She knew there would come a moment when he would speak up. Alex had no patience at all for uncomfortable silences.

Sure enough, she was proven right after a short while.

“Mum, what the heck _did_ happen down there? I would’ve asked Ardeth, but he looks like a dog who’s just been stolen a bone from.”

She couldn’t help a smile at the mental image. “Ardeth doesn’t bite, you know.”

“Have you _looked_ at him?” “All right, you do have a point.” Evelyn’s eyes returned to staring at the dunes as if of their own accord. She loved this landscape so dearly it really felt like an integral part of herself. “Well, it seems that Ardeth and the Medjai went to retrieve both the Diamond of Ahm Shere _and_ your dad and uncle, but that they failed in that. And they lost a few men in the scuffle.”

Alex’s head swivelled round in a flash, and he looked very white all of a sudden. “Dad and Uncle Jon were all right though, weren’t they?”

Evy thought about what Ardeth had told her of the confrontation with Hamilton, and cut to the core of things. “Yes, dear, don’t worry. The problem is, for that Hamilton man, they are also hostages on top of having information, and he doesn’t seem too keen on letting go of his hostages so easily.”

“Oh.” Alex seemed to relax slightly. “Still, I wish this nutcase would’ve chosen somebody else for ‘information’.” His lips thinned into what would have looked like a pout, were it not for the set, serious expression of his round blue eyes. “I wish Uncle Jon hadn’t bumped into Mr Ferguson the other day. I wish we hadn’t come to Egypt at all, even.”

Evelyn gave a small sigh, refraining from taking him in her arms, only taking the liberty to tuck tenderly a blond lock behind his pink round ear. “Things just don’t work like that, sweetheart. There are some things I wish never happened, but they did. Sometimes, some good can even come from the bad. I met your father because I wanted to go to Hamunaptra, and when I – _accidentally_ – raised Imhotep, a lot of terrible things happened. People died, and it looked like the end of the world. But in the end, things got better. Not like they were before – people were dead, and we couldn’t do anything about it –”

“Oh, c’mon, you had the Book of the Dead, didn’t you, Mum?” Evy sensed the battle was half-won when Alex risked a grin. She smiled.

“We didn’t, Imhotep did, and at the time we had done everything to bury him very, very deep in the sand. No, my point is, when bad things happen, the bad doesn’t last for ever. And if you look hard enough – God knows that sometimes, you’ve got to look _really_ hard – you can find that some good comes from it. Has it ever occurred to you that you wouldn’t even be there if it hadn’t been for Imhotep?”

The boy made a curious face, something halfway between thoughtful and disgusted, and turned to his mother to look her in the eye. “Well,” he finally said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, “I must remember to thank him next time, for sure.”

She gave him a bright, genuine smile, and put an arm around him to hold him close. Surprisingly enough, Alex made no move out of the embrace and seemed content to let his mum hug him. They watched the horizon for a little while, until Alex grumbled, “Anyway, whatever good or bad comes from this whole nasty business, I really hope it won’t be a little brother or sister.”

Evelyn gave a hearty laugh this time, and she was almost certain to have heard a slight chuckle behind her from Ardeth’s corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter in 2005; I was 23 and not particularly aware of things like tropes and the Bechdel Test, but I knew I wanted to bring these two women – Evy and Elizabeth – together because, apart from Satiah in chapters 6 and 7, they were pretty much the only female characters of the whole cast at this point and didn’t interact at all. At the time it was a subconscious attempt at the Bechdel Test – or at least shifting the focus to women for a change. Evy’s and Satiah’s conversation in chapter 7 doesn’t pass it, either.
> 
> Now I’m 37 and a little more… seasoned, I suppose, and also less terrified of any female OC (whatever her role in the story) getting branded as a Mary Sue. There are a few more original characters introduced in the oncoming chapters, some male, some female. Hopefully they all work.


	14. The Value of Initiatives

Night set fast on the Egyptian desert. The sundown had been long, colourful and warm, with just the right amount of slight breeze to cool the air down to pleasant before the long cold of the night. The ground beneath Rick’s feet was still hot, but it was gradually cooling, enough for him to feel it even through the soles of his thick shoes. For the moment, though, only his heels were on the ground as he lay flat on his back with his hands under his head, watching the sky grow darker.

Even with nothing but the immensity of clear night sky in front of him, Rick had rarely felt so trapped. He had his back to the wall, and each time he tried to think up a way to get himself out of this mess, he came up against yet another wall. His range of choices was certainly restricted, and being able to do nothing but lie there and wait for the sun to rise again was a situation he did not like one bit.

The breeze threw his hair into his eyes, and he brushed it away absent-mindedly. It immediately conjured up the way Evy’s dark locks of hair got into her own eyes with the slightest breath of wind, their way of curling around her lovely face, and her utter failure each time she tried to tie all of them up into a bun or a plait. Even for the first years he’d known her, when she wore her hair up almost all the time, messy tendrils always framed her face no matter what. To an outsider, it was in direct contradiction with the image of the prim and proper English Rose, especially when her lips parted into a smile, and her eyes began to sparkle. Rick had never seen anyone’s eyes sparkle like Evy’s. It made her look truly mischievous, and, fortunately or unfortunately for him, utterly irresistible.

And he missed her. Boy, had he had time to reflect on how much he missed her. He missed her laugh, he missed the touch of her light hand, the scent of her hair, the way she sounded adorable even when she sang off-key, the dangerous glint that lit up in her bright eyes whenever she had an idea that could, in Rick’s opinion anyway, lead to disaster, the warmth of her skin, the way her lips felt so soft in the morning…

He shifted slightly on his spot on the sand, breaking off a line of thought that was getting uncomfortable. His gaze left the sky for one of the fires a few feet to his right. Beside it was the broad figure of Ferguson, sitting with a cup of coffee or tea in his hands, looking deep in thought and unhappy. It occurred to Rick that he, too, must be missing his wife, and worrying about her like mad. At least Evy was free, and Rick was pretty damn sure that she was probably moving heaven and earth right now to find him and Jonathan. He was just glad that she hadn’t taken part in the scuffle the evening before; she wouldn’t have considered such a venture very stealthy, but she likely might have joined in anyway. Waltzing in with all guns blazing was more Rick’s style. Then again, he had been a very bad influence on her in that matter.

From where he lay on the ground, Rick saw Jonathan walk to the fire a little stiffly and sit beside it, warming his hands by the flames. The Englishman made no sign that he had seen him at all, and Rick made no move to get up and come closer to the fire either. His anger had abated reasonably – as reasonably as it could have in twenty-four hours – but he still didn’t get it. He had had the whole day to think about it, but he still just didn’t get it. Jonathan had proved before that he was no bad hand at shooting, far from it. He had a sharp eye and a good aim. Hamilton was a perfect target, there was no way in hell he could have missed. So _why_ hadn’t he taken the shot when he had the occasion?

The cut on his forehead twinged, reminding him of the _other_ reason he’d spent the entire day stewing in softly boiled fury. He’d been so damn stupid. Taking a hit in the middle of a melee, yeah, that happened. But getting blindsided like that was a rookie’s mistake. Or an old man’s. Frankly, none of those two options looked good.

The wind shifted, and Rick became aware that the two Englishmen were talking in low voices.

“…now I understand Baine’s black eye and why he’s been glaring at you all day. And when did you finally find your camel?” he heard Ferguson ask quietly.

“Just before dawn, hiding under the cloth of a collapsed tent, completely unscathed. Scurried away to save its neck, it had. Can’t say I blame it, though… That’s what any sane beast or bloke should do in circumstances like that.”

“So now he’s not a ‘stupid, filthy useless bugger’ anymore?”

“He’s still a filthy, useless bugger. But he’s not stupid, I’ll grant you that.”

Rick heard a low chuckle from Ferguson, then Jonathan’s quiet voice again, following a short silence.

“So, perhaps now you’ll tell me exactly who you went to see to ‘pass the word’?”

“Yeah, now that there isn’t anyone around close enough to hear…” Ferguson looked about cautiously. Rick reflected that, three or four days ago, he would have thought the guy was being paranoid. And doing a bad job of it. “All right, but you must promise me not to tell anybody – this is serious business.”

“Right, I forgot this is all just a big cricket game here.”

“_Jon…_”

“All right, all right, I promise, and I’ll shut up and listen then.”

“The High Priest of Osiris.”

There was a beat. When Rick risked an almost open glance at the two Englishmen, he saw that Jonathan was sitting very still, a suspicious sort of ‘Uh?’ expression on his face. Ferguson sipped a bit from his cup.

This was getting interesting. Rick strained his ears to understand everything he could from his spot.

“Would you care to elaborate?” Jonathan finally uttered, his voice thankfully no louder than it had been. Ferguson shrugged.

“I’ve done some… research, asked some people, and I picked up the trail the afternoon before we left Giza. Strange old bloke, very imposing – made stuff I still can’t explain, like a little chat with a ghost on the wall… His coffee was the best I’d ever drunk, by the way, hands down.”

“Are you playing the bloody fool on purpose?”

“You’re not very patient.” There was wry humour in Ferguson’s voice. “Well, I asked him to warn your sister – tell her that O’Connell and you are fine and all that – so that she would go to the Medjai, because they could give a bit of a hand in this kind of situation, I’d been told.”

So that’s why Ardeth and his buddies had been so quick to find them. They simply knew where to look. _Good initiative of Ferguson’s, that._

“Well,” came Jonathan’s voice after another short silence, “at least they know as much as we do now.”

Rick saw Ferguson shake his head. The flickering light of the fire in front of him cast shadows on his face, making him look grim.

“No, Jon, they know a bit more than us – than Hamilton, anyway. Remember what he said about the army of Anubis?”

“What, that any mortal who wakes up this army can control it as long as he claims before the day after tomorrow?”

“Seems that he was a bit wrong concerning the ‘any mortal can control it’ part.”

It seemed to Rick that he sank a little deeper in sand that felt definitely cooler. _Just what we need. Not only we got a mad megalomaniac who wants to wipe a whole country off the map, but his plan is based on fairy tales and hokum – _half-false_ fairy tales and hokum, at that. Just great._

“Let me guess.” Jonathan’s voice was lower. He sounded very tired. “If _he_ tries to wake up the army of Anubis, it will wipe out the world.”

“How did you know?”

_That’s always the story. I guess we’re just lucky that way._

“Third time, remember? I’m starting to know how it goes.”

Rick went back to staring at the darkening sky. Except for the now familiar sinking feeling in his stomach that meant the end of the world in a few days, he felt oddly normal. The beat of his heart hadn’t even changed.

He continued to listen, albeit idly, as Ferguson detailed his interview with the High Priest. If, somehow, they could get Hamilton tied up and gagged and just wait for the moon – or lack thereof – to set, it would be just perfect. Then again, perhaps it might take more persuasion for agents whom their boss scared out of their wits to commit such a rebellion. Maybe if they managed to convince them that they were all going to die if Hamilton succeeded. It wouldn’t even be a lie, after all…

“What the hell do you mean, ‘claiming Ahm Shere’?”

The edge in Jonathan’s low voice brought Rick’s attention to the conversation around the campfire a few feet away.

“Just that. The day after tomorrow at dawn, the pyramid will be destroyed.”

“_How?_”

“No idea. I suppose it’ll sink into the ground, or cave in or something.”

Rick closed his eyes, and, to his own great surprise, found himself fighting a rising dry, mirthless laugh. It wasn’t enough that what Hamilton was planning to do in the pyramid would probably end all of humanity. He had to have it planned for the exact moment nobody should _be_ inside the damn pyramid in the first place.

Ridiculous as the idea sounded, tying up Hamilton until danger had passed seemed damn tempting. But it was also completely useless with all those cronies around the guy – he would be freed in no time. The most it could do would be slowing things down a bit.

Without raising his voice much, Rick said, without really looking at the two Englishmen near the fire, “How long before we’re at Ahm Shere, do you think?”

Ferguson jumped, and Jonathan’s head swivelled round in his direction. “How much have you heard?” Ferguson whispered, sounding half scared and half angry.

“Pretty much everything from Anubis’ army up to now. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna shoot off at the mouth about your High Priest of Whatever. So,” Rick said, sitting up on his elbows to face the two of them, “how long?”

The Liverpudlian gulped, then paused to think. Rick noticed that, while Jonathan wasn’t quite avoiding his eyes, he wasn’t exactly meeting them, either.

“I’ve heard Collins say we can be there by teatime tomorrow, but considering the directions we’ve been given, I’d say rather tomorrow by nightfall. Camels don’t go that fast, and there’s quite a lot of things to carry ‘round. Why, what are you thinking about?”

“Well,” Rick said slowly, “we’d just need to stall things a bit, right?”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” asked Jonathan, more quietly than Ferguson. Rick got up from the ground and went to sit down next to the fire. The sky had reached its night-black hue, and darkness had truly fallen around them.

“Actually,” he said in a low voice once he was settled, “I was thinking about jumping Hamilton and storing him someplace till tomorrow, but I guess blowing something up would do the trick just as well. Any kind of diversion might work, really, as long as it slows them down.” The truck, for instance, would be a good target. That was where they stored all the tents for the day and half the ammo for the night. With enough gas to light the fuse, it could make a nice big bonfire.

There was a beat, during which the two others’ eyes went very round and slightly bulging. While Ferguson still stared at him wordlessly, Jonathan shook his head. “You’re mental. They’d never let us try something like that.”

“Because you think I’m gonna ask their permission?” Rick retorted. “At least _I_ can grab an opportunity when I see it!”

“All right, I see your point,” Ferguson said quickly, before Jonathan, whose eyes flashed angrily for a second, could say anything. “But what kind of diversion? How do you suppose we could get hold of Hamilton without anybody seeing us?”

Rick thought for a minute, then nodded.

“Okay, forget Hamilton, but we _have_ to do something. We gotta slow them down.”

“I second that,” muttered Ferguson. “I’d hate to be in that bloody pyramid when it crumbles.” Rick saw his eyes dart to the truck parked some way off from the campfires. Apparently he had more or less the same idea. It was also true that there weren’t that many things that could blow up in the camp.

_Question is, how the hell are we going to get there at all?_

“If I may venture a suggestion…”

Jonathan’s low voice startled Rick out of his musings. The American glanced at his brother-in-law from the corner of his eye with a frown.

“Look, if you don’t wanna be a part of it, don’t both—”

“It’s not _that_,” Jonathan snapped, sounding miffed. He wasn’t looking at them. Rick followed his gaze to the camels who were tethered nearby. “I might have an idea.”

* * *

Never, in Jonathan’s admittedly ample experience with plans that were bound to fail dismally, had he laid the foundations of a plan that was _so obviously_ bound to fail dismally.

First, camels. There was the fact that camels were involved, and the fact that they had to behave according to plan, when he knew all too well that the bloody beasts never behaved according to any plan but their own.

Second, the idea of Tom coming up with something to distract whoever would be guarding the lorry was preposterous. If the bloke was anything, it was honest. Truthfully, painfully honest. He was just completely incapable of telling a decent lie without blowing it up out of proportion. Then again, Jonathan conceded, Tom had almost succeeded in fooling Evy, hands down the most suspicious person he knew, into believing everything he’d said, and had definitely succeeded as far as Jonathan himself was concerned. It definitely seemed that life as a spy had changed some things he knew for sure about his old friend. So yes, maybe this particular point was not as worrying as the others.

The worst – the tiny part in the plan that made Jonathan cringe and curse himself for suggesting it in the first place – was that _he_ was going to set the blasted thing on fire. All by himself. And wasn’t that a daunting prospect. While he certainly knew a thing or two about the inner workings of an automobile – enough to make one run without really needing the appropriate keys, for example – the idea of an ‘internal combustion engine’ with explosives in the back blowing to pieces didn’t exactly strike him as a particularly clever thing to stand near to. Especially when he was the one who would see to it that the thing blew up, since Rick – _bloody Americans always _have_ to blow something up, don’t they!_ – would be busy with the camels.

Which brought him back to the first problem. How on earth do you make camels understand that orders are urgent and vital to a plan? Beastly cretins couldn’t even follow a lead decently, anyway.

This very point was the reason for his presence a few yards from the lorry. So far, Rick had been the only one in their group of three with any sort of authority over his camel. He was thus altogether suited for the mission of herding the camels out of the makeshift paddock, and then scattering them to make the biggest mess possible. As for Tom, well, somebody had to distract whoever was doing the guarding and not look especially suspicious in the process.

That left Jonathan with nothing but the truck thing. _Fan-bloody-tastic_.

Agents had taken the food for the evening out of the lorry and were currently, for the most part, sitting around campfires in groups of six or seven to eat. Most of the tents and gear and some boxes of explosives had been stored in the lorry, and three agents were standing between it and the car, talking in low voices and looking like unnaturally stiff-backed guard dogs. Jonathan couldn’t help being somewhat uncharitably satisfied that he was not the only one not to enjoy camel-back trekking.

There was a nip in the air, and Jonathan found himself glancing longingly at the nearest fire. It was sparkling merrily a few feet away, drawing some agents to it like moths to a lamp, looking very welcoming indeed. Neither Rick nor Tom was anywhere to be seen; each was probably at his own appointed post, waiting for his time to act. Which, as Jonathan realised by peering at his watch in what little light he could get, was drawing near.

The sound of footfall and low voices brought his attention back to the three men standing nearby, and he saw that a fourth had just joined them. The outline of Tom’s sandy hair had an odd reddish look about it with the light of the fire behind him.

“Good evening.”

“Evening, Ferguson.”

The third agent said nothing, but gave a slight nod. His sharp-featured face, hidden in shadows, was visible only for a second as he struck a match to light his cigarette.

“What are you up to, then?” asked the first, a burly-looking fellow who stood easily a head or two taller than Tom.

“Oh, nothing in particular, Norton,” Tom answered, and Jonathan rolled his eyes at the would-be offhand tone. At least he didn’t _look_ too conspicuous. In fact, he just looked tired. “Just wondering what I’m doing here, that’s all. I’m stiff, I’m cold, and I miss my wife.”

“Ah, come on, Ferguson,” said the second man. He had a low-pitched, gravely sort of voice that was surprising coming from a bloke so short. “We’re all suffering here – collectively. Now personally, I wouldn’t say no to a shower and a pint, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?”

“Yeah, Collins, I suppose you’re right. But still, Hamilton had no right to kidnap me wife and use her as bloody leverage. No right at all.”

“I don’t say what he did wasn’t dirty, mate – it was, I’ll grant you that,” the burly one, Norton, piped up. “But it was _orders_.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Tom protested, louder. Jonathan’s ears pricked up in spite of himself. He was supposed to focus his attention on the camel paddock Rick would unlock any minute now – as soon as he made sure Tom’s little diversion was working – but diversion or not, this was getting really interesting. “Hamilton told me just that, when I went to see the prisoners last Sunday. He acted on nobody’s orders but his own.”

“_What_ are you suggesting, then, Ferguson?” the third asked in a hissing sort of voice, speaking for the first time. “That Hamilton is using us for his own interest instead of the King’s? Are you sure you want to call your superior a traitor to his country?”

There was a heavy silence, then Tom said, rather coldly, “I don’t know. He intends to raise the fabled Army of Anubis to wipe out Germany – its leader _and_ its population. What do you think? Is that enough to make him a traitor?”

Jonathan was finding it very hard to keep his eyes on the paddock and his ears on the ongoing conversation. What on earth was Tom trying to do? Surely not turn them over? Hamilton would probably get him arrested in no time if words reached his ears about Tom revealing the flaws in his little plan, let alone advocating mutiny. And then things would get _really_ complicated. If not downright nasty.

He watched the three agents stare at Tom, looking dumbstruck. _That’s right,_ he thought, peering at them, almost willing this particular thought into their minds, _you’re not believing him. You’re goody-goody secret bloody agents who do what they’re told and that’s it. Bloke just misses his wife, he’s just making up stories… please don’t believe him…_

What was taking Rick so long?

And then everything happened very fast. The short man named Collins opened his mouth, said, “Well –” and a merry chorus of roars, bleats and occasional yelps interrupted him. From his place on the ground, Jonathan allowed himself two seconds of glee as he watched the whole disbanding herd of camels gallop past the four agents.

The trio plus Tom stood there for a short moment, mouths hanging open, before taking off to try to catch the stray camels. People were already running after the animals, others shouted for anyone who could lend a hand, and one man hollered expletives at a camel that had stomped on his foot. Wondering if the camel who had done the stomping had been his own stroppy animal – and he had a hunch it was – Jonathan scrambled up and slipped under the lorry.

There was almost no light at all under that great big mass, and Jonathan spent a little while blinking in the dark and trying to get his bearings. When he could finally make out enough to know where he was and spot his target, he crawled in the sand, silently cursing the cold, sticky grains already filling his collar, his sleeves and his pockets and wincing at the sickening smell of petrol right above him that meant he was at his own appointed post: right under the petrol tank of the lorry. Biting his lip in some apprehension, he took out of his pocket the small knife Tom had unearthed for this purpose and began to drill the tank.

It seemed to take hours, and his arms were growing lifeless in the end, but it worked, somehow.

Jonathan did not really know how much petrol it would take to make the whole thing catch on fire, and, frankly, he really wasn’t contemplating striking a match under that lorry to check. When the hole was just large enough, he stuck his handkerchief in it to make a fuse and dug a hole under it. As petrol filled it at an alarming speed, he crawled back and dug a narrow trench on the way out.

Emerging from under a lorry covered in soot and sand was not, of course, the most inconspicuous Jonathan had ever looked. Incredibly, nobody seemed to notice him as he bent quickly to strike the match and set fire to the trench of thick, stinking dark liquid at his feet. He scampered off without further ado, grinning like an idiot from relief and, admittedly, from having perfectly succeeded in something for once.

What could go wrong at that point?

Well, something could, it appeared, as nothing happened and the lorry still stood there. There wasn’t even a single spark.

Jonathan felt his blood drain from his face as his eyes met Rick’s, who was coming back from the paddock and looked – surprised? Suspicious? Jonathan couldn’t really tell from afar. He spun on the spot and headed back towards the lorry, frowning. Surely something must have got in the way… It was probably the –

He didn’t even have time to finish his thought. The intense light hit his eyes before the enormous bang of the explosion reached his ears, and the blast caught him head on.

* * *

Tom had finally recaptured his own camel and was quite happy to have recognised the animal before Baine, who was dangerously close, could get his hands on him. Most of his fellow agents were still struggling with the straying camels. Tom did not know what O’Connell had done to frighten them so badly, but it had worked – unless the beasts were unnaturally good actors, and Tom, while not really disliking camels as much as Jon did, was realistic enough to know they weren’t.

His camel gave a small roar towards the left, and looking over his shoulder Tom saw O’Connell finishing tying up his own camel a few feet away. When the American spotted him, he jerked his chin towards the lorry – from which he stood at reasonable distance – with a slight grin that revealed some of his remarkably sharp-looking teeth. It was something Tom had noticed the first time he’d seen O’Connell grin. The man seemed to have an impossible number of teeth in his jaw.

The Liverpudlian looked up from tying up his camel to see Jon step from behind the lorry and take cover, dusting himself off energetically but looking overall pleased with himself. When nothing happened, however, he stopped, frowned, and strode back to the lorry. Tom was on the verge of asking O’Connell something about combustion engines when everything exploded and he dove into the sand as a pure knee-jerk reflex.

The night seemed even darker for a second with the stark contrast of the glare, neither yellow nor red, that filled Tom’s horizon for a second or two before he squeezed his eyes shut and put his hands on his head for protection. There was a snap and a strangled camel’s roar drifting away behind him, meaning that his faithful mount had broken free out of sheer terror. And then complete silence.

Tom lifted his face from the sand and opened bemused eyes to discover a thick, heavy-looking black cloud of smoke hanging in mid-air where the lorry had stood a moment before. There was a ringing silence, and an overwhelming smell of petrol, steel and plastic burning – it was so heavy that Tom’s head swam for a second as he wobbled back to his feet, coughing and waving the smoke away.

Sound began to trickle in, and Tom realised that he had been almost completely deaf to everything for a few seconds. Agents, some still clutching camels’ reins, were running to the remains of the lorry, or rather the cloud of smoke that still blocked the remains of the lorry from view. And, incidentally, the amateur arsonist who had set the whole thing on fire.

Tom’s insides gave an ugly sort of lurch as he realised he had not seen Jon come out from behind the lorry yet.

Beside him, O’Connell’s eyes were wide open and, Tom noticed, held something like approval as the American took in the mayhem the explosion had left in its wake. Then the same nasty thought appeared to cross his mind as the half-grin slipped abruptly from his face and he turned to Tom with a funny look in his eyes.

They scrambled up as one and ran up to the still-glowing remains of the lorry, scattered over the black and burnt sand. The carcass gleamed a sinister orange colour that looked ugly set against the deep blue of the impossibly huge sky. Tom almost reeled on the spot from the acrid stench of molten metal and plastic. He swallowed hard, trying not to think about what he might find among the remnants in question.

Hamilton’s razor-sharp voice made him jump right out of his skin.

“What happened? Who did this?”

Tom tore his gaze from the wreck of the lorry to his superior, who was striding up between the campfires with a couple of agents in tow, cold fury etched across his usually solemn face. He walked right up to Tom and O’Connell and stopped just in front of them, grey eyes glaring. O’Connell stared back. His expression might have been carved on his face with a hammer and chisel.

“_You…_” Hamilton snarled, and Tom almost recoiled, relieved not to be on the receiving end of that snarl. “You have something to do with this, I just _know_ it. Don’t even try to deny it.”

“I don’t know what you’re ranting about,” O’Connell retorted quietly, not looking away. “I didn’t go anywhere near that truck since your goons gave me the thing they call ‘stew’. You can ask ‘em.”

“Where were you, then, when the lorry exploded?” the Englishman all but spat, and Tom couldn’t help gaping slightly at his dispassionate boss almost losing control. In contrast, O’Connell looked remarkably calm – and remarkably cold, too.

“I was helping the others with the camels. They looked like they could do with some help and I didn’t want to have to walk tomorrow.”

Hamilton glowered silently at O’Connell for a couple of seconds, then leaned in for a conspiratorial harsh whisper. “I will get you for this, believe you me. I just know you’re behind all this… mayhem. I _will_ get you for this.”

O’Connell’s teeth gleamed in the low glow of the wreck. “Can’t wait to see you try.”

Hamilton must have sensed the dangerous quality of O’Connell’s grim, mirthless smile. He stepped back and his cold, aloof persona snapped back into place as he turned to the other agents awaiting instructions behind him.

“If you would be so kind as to retrieve the Stan Laurel half of your comedy duo act, Mr O’Connell, we will leave all that can be spared behind and ride through the night. Gentlemen, I give you twenty minutes to get ready. If luck is on our side, we should reach the Pyramid of Ahm Shere by tomorrow evening.”

He straightened his jacket, and his ice-cold eyes fell on Tom, who fervently hoped the shudder that went through him was not too obvious. “If I were you, Ferguson,” he breathed, and Tom’s heart skipped a beat at his tone, “I would show more care as to the _company_ I keep. This could cause trouble in the end – to you and to your lovely wife.”

Tom gulped, and straightened his back as he nodded. A wave of cold went through him at the thought of what this man was implying, as well as – not for the first time – a helpless sort of fury. He squeezed his jaw shut before he could blurt out something that would threaten Liz’s safety even more, and Hamilton walked away, giving him a nasty parting look. Tom felt hollow and sick, and as he turned back to what was left of the lorry his heart bobbed up in his throat. If on top of all that Jon was somewhere in there…

O’Connell had turned as well, and was scanning the wreck with a hard look on his face Tom hadn’t seen him wear before. His eyes hardened with each passing second as nothing moved amidst the ruined bits and pieces of the lorry.

Suddenly there was an odd noise right next to them, like a strangled throat clearing, and both men turned around sharply. Whatever had been wringing and twisting Tom’s stomach since the explosion released its grip, his heart slid down to its usual place in his chest, and he could see O’Connell’s shoulders sag almost imperceptibly. Then he felt his eyes go very round.

Jon was standing there, very much alive but wild-eyed, shaking, covered in soot and sand from head to toe, curly hair standing on end. His blue eyes gleamed out of his sooty face with a heartfelt fury that was almost as bad as Tom remembered flinching at just before he got punched in the face in the basement of the British Consulate.

“_You_,” he eventually articulated in a tone not so different from Hamilton’s, pointing a badly shaking finger at O’Connell, who stood his ground stonily, his arms folded across his chest, “_you_… you absolute, utter – that was _so_ completely – you really have no _idea_ –”

His jumbled words seemed to tumble out of his mouth as though speech failed to describe the apparent monumental stupidity of O’Connell’s idea of a diversion. After a moment he seemed to give up trying to speak and just stood there open-mouthed, accusing finger still pointed at the American.

Tom’s gaze shifted swiftly from Jon to O’Connell, whose face slowly lit up in a broad, genuine grin.

“Y’know,” he said after a few seconds, “years ago when I first met you, I thought you were a boozy slacker in need of a proper spine.”

The words took some sinking in, but in the end Jon snapped his mouth shut and glared up at O’Connell, looking even more aggravated.

“Charming,” he barked. “Meaning you bloody changed your mind since?”

O’Connell took his time to answer, and Tom, realising he was enjoying it immensely, allowed himself to sag a little bit from the sheer relief of seeing his mate alive and swearing. The American cast his brother-in-law an appraising sort of look, then, finally, gave another huge grin of his. His round blue eyes twinkled.

“Yeah, kinda.”

Then, looking more serious, he asked, “Nothing broken or twisted, no burns?”

On top of the obvious, Jon looked like someone with a bad case of brain whiplash. When the question registered, he blinked. Then blinked again.

“…No?”

“Good.”

And O’Connell walked off cheerfully after briefly patting Jon’s shoulder, lifting a small cloud of soot as he did so. Tom watched him bemusedly while Jon’s eyes were still glued to the empty space where O’Connell had stood seconds before; then he whirled round to try to catch his friend when Jon’s knees gave out and he collapsed in a heap on the ground. He just sat there, still staring into space with an odd look that was halfway between fury and a sort of astonishment.

Tom refrained from chuckling and bent to check if Jon had come back to his very own brand of normality.

“Oh, by the way,” O’Connell said as an afterthought, making Tom start and look up. The American turned to them, thus walking backwards. “You might wanna –” there he gestured wiping imaginary dust off his face “– because Hamilton’s not that dense. If you turn up like that, he’s bound to reach some conclusions.” And he left with a grin.

His was a very good point, Tom noted, and he proceeded to search his pockets for a handkerchief that might do the trick. Preferably one that he didn’t care too much about, because there wasn’t a square inch of Jon’s face that wasn’t covered in soot.

In the meantime, Jon seemed to be recovering from the blast of the explosion and the sheer shock of it. His shaking was dying down. He finally shook his head, looking still exasperated but calmer.

“Im_po_ssible. Talk about bloody diversion. I’m never pulling a stunt like that again, ever. The man is _impossible_.” He moved into a more comfortable sitting position, and winced slightly. “Fact is, I’m getting a bit old for this sort of thing, possibly.”

“Possibly, Jon,” Tom said with a grin, handing him the handkerchief. “None of us are getting any younger. It’s been a long time since I didn’t wake up in the morning aching in various places.”

Jon accepted the proffered bit of cloth with a thanks and began to wipe the soot off his face. Tom’s comment got a small grin.

“Well, I suppose it’s your lot in life if you like sleeping out on the ground – you know, being a secret agent and whatnot. Still, I hope that this ‘delay’ thing worked and I didn’t get all singed like that for nothing.”

The only thing that Tom could offer there was a rather embarrassed silence. While the plan itself had gone on smoothly enough for the most part, the results had clearly not met their expectations. If anything, it had reinforced Hamilton’s determination for all of them to be on their way to Ahm Shere as quickly as possible.

Jon quickly deduced from Tom’s silence that not everything had gone as planned, and his face fell. “Oh, don’t.”

“Sorry, Jon,” said Tom sympathetically. “Hamilton decided to leave all the gear behind and travel by night. He’s expecting to see us on our camels and be off in… ten minutes, I guess.”

Jon groaned. “Fantastic. A whole night on a bloody camel. If someone snores, I’ll kill him.”

Tom snorted. “I needed those hours of sleep too, but I imagine we’ll have to make do without them, won’t we?” He reached down to Jon, who grabbed his hand and staggered up. He swayed a little, but remained in an upright position, to his great relief it seemed.

“Thanks. You know what?” he said, taking off his jacket to shake all the soot he could from it. “When this whole mess is over and done with, I’ll get you a drink at the Sultan’s Casbah. You never got to see the inside of it, did you? It’s always crowded and rather seedy, but the whiskey isn’t bad and the beer is better. As good a place to get plastered as any, and I think both of us need that.”

“And you’ll buy the rounds?”

The idea was appealing – assuming they _would_ see this mess over and done with, of course. Jon made a show of hesitating, but shrugged with a grin. “Yeah, all right.”

Tom felt a similar grin make its way on his face. In the chaos of the past week he had almost forgotten how good it felt to have this normal a conversation with a friend. The shock and fear – brief enough, but violent – that had followed the explosion of the lorry had very much calmed down by now. While the constant dull anxiety that never left him since he had known Liz was held prisoner somewhere was still there, gnawing at his stomach, knowing that Jon and him were back on the same side was an encouraging thought.

“That’s a deal, then. C’mon.”

Plus, when Jon was agreeing to buy the rounds, it was rarely a bad omen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re. waking up in the morning “aching in various places”, in the immortal words of the Monty Python’s Dennis, “I’m 37, I’m not old.” (Or 37 and a half if you want to be finicky about it.) These guys are 41 or 42, we’re fairly close in age. But I do often wake up in the morning with little cricks and aches, mainly in the back.


	15. Before the Plunge

The sun was rising far away to the left of the dirigible; the sky looked a washed-out sort of blue that, to Izzy, felt both daunting and a bit bland without any wisp of cloud to break the uniformity. Stifling a yawn, he reached to douse the light he kept overhead at night to be able to read his maps. His muscles felt sore, not at all rested from what little sleep he’d had.

_Two nights in a row almost without sleep an’ all. I’m getting a bit old for this bullshit. I’ll get you for that, O’Connell, you mark my words._

Mrs O’Connell was curled up on a bunk in one of the cabins, fast asleep, with only a curl or two of hair visible under the blanket; and that Medjai or what have you, Ardeth Bay, was unceremoniously slumped against the wall of the wheelhouse, his head lolling slightly, completely out for the count as well. Around him on the floor were scattered all the other maps Izzy owned that were not in front of him around the helm. Izzy did not like to think of what would happen when the circumstances demanded that he asked for one of his maps back. Boy, those eyes could _glare_.

Wait. The number wasn’t right. Where had the kid got to?

Just as Izzy frowned and started looking around, he found the boy sitting by the rail a few feet away. Apparently, he wasn’t sleeping, as the pilot saw him stretch a bit and change positions in order to be completely in the light. The morning sun, still nice and warm and not yet burning as it would be in a few moments, was something to enjoy and the boy seemed to be rightly appreciative of it. Of course, if they usually lived in London (which Izzy had somehow gathered), that kid must rarely see light like that. Good for him that he did now, because he was as white as most white English people were.

That kid was a funny one.

It wasn’t that Izzy didn’t like kids. He supposed that, if you looked really hard for it, you could find a use for them other than quickly becoming adults or something else he could deal with, but generally he liked them better away. That didn’t include the countless children who were always hanging around the place; those were generally there to get a bit of money from the tourists, watch Dee set off or come back, and help if a hand was needed. Other kids, like those from his family clientele, Izzy just didn’t know what to do with.

That Alex was something else. Of course he would be, with a father like O’Connell and a mother like this spitfire of a woman. He had a smart mouth on him, probably a bit too much for his own good, and Izzy hadn’t missed the way the boy had tinkered with his lock. Either they did teach useful stuff at those posh schools, or he’d definitely had lessons from sticky-fingered members of his family. Izzy’s money was on Carnahan. O’Connell probably had a qualm or two about teaching his kid something like that.

Alex being a gutsy and sneaky devil wasn’t surprising in itself. What was more surprising was that the kid didn’t behave like kids his age were supposed to behave, according to Izzy’s limited knowledge of the species. Even if he did pelt the pilot with endless questions about Dee, Egypt, what his dad was like when he was younger (Izzy so far had artfully avoided answering this particular subject, keenly aware that Mrs O’Connell generally seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere) and went just about anywhere on the dirigible when not watched, nimble as an ape… Alex didn’t whine, didn’t make a fuss – much – over simple things like the not-so-great food or the lack of creature comforts, and he didn’t get in the way. As far as Izzy was concerned, this was a first. He’d simply assumed ‘normal’ kids were a nuisance most of the time. But then again, that kid’s pedigree alone spoke against the word ‘normal’.

Izzy blinked and yawned his head off. On one hand, those were the best hours of the day, with nobody around but him and Dee, and generally that was when he would mutter things to himself or to his dirigible without someone goggling at him like he should be carted off to a madhouse or something. On the other hand, those particular hours were the most difficult to stay awake through, without any sound, any sight or any movement – or conversation – to make steering eventful. It was so boring that a simple encounter with a flock of birds would almost make it into the log for the sheer lack of action.

When his jaw hinged itself back to its right place, he gave a start as he realised the kid was no longer in sight. Indulging in a two-second panic, more than enough time to imagine what would be left of him if something happened to the O’Connell kid, he looked around wildly, only to find a pair of round blue eyes staring up at him from under a blond fringe.

“Jeez, kid, no need to scare me like that,” Izzy grumbled as Alex made his way into the cabin. The boy shrugged.

“I didn’t know you were watching me.”

“I don’t like the thought of a payin’ customer’s kid going over the rail, is all. ‘Specially _this_ kind of payin’ customer.” That said with a jerk of his head to the back of the cabin, where Mrs O’Connell still slept soundly.

Alex’s grin shone as toothy as his father’s. Maybe with a couple of milk teeth still hanging on.

“Think she’s scary, huh?”

Izzy snorted. “You gonna tell me she’s not?”

“She’s my mum. _I_’m not supposed to be scared. Now you, well…”

“All right. I get it.”

Izzy reported his attention to the desert in front of him. The shadows of the dunes were quickly shortening, their mellow golden colour turning to flat yellow, and what he could see of the sky from under the balloon deepened from pale blue to cobalt. He could even begin to feel the heat reflected from the rising sun by the sand below the dirigible. The day was truly beginning.

For the sake of his nervous system, he glanced around for the kid. Alex had not moved from his spot a couple of steps behind Izzy. He was gazing at the sea of dunes, his eyes already reduced to slits by the sunlight pouring in through the window in front of them.

Remarkably looking like a much younger version of his father in the process.

O’Connell had not been the talkative type most of the time. There were times when he would just be so engrossed in whatever he was doing or thinking that it was useless trying to engage conversation with him. Which was a pity, because while Izzy liked silence fine, he didn’t care much for shared silence.

Izzy shook his head inwardly. Amazing how folks can change. There was a time when the words ‘O’Connell’ and ‘married’ could not even be conceived to belong in the same sentence – not by Izzy Buttons of the Magic Carpet Airways, anyway. He had known O’Connell from before his time in the Legion. At that time he’d been rough, goofy, downright terrifying if he meant to, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like a full meal once in a while, a night with a girl nice enough to lower her price on account of his good looks, or getting the upper hand in a bar brawl.

Not the kind of guy you picture married.

Then again, he had also been impossibly young. They both had been, come to think of it. Twenty-two shouldn’t be ‘old’ by anyone’s standards.

Izzy had had time, two years ago, to watch the interaction of the O’Connell couple from as safe a distance as possible, and he had found it rather interesting. In the end, it did not seem _that_ unbelievable that O’Connell could have fallen _that_ bad for the woman, and the opposite was just as true. The guy was rock-solid most of the time, and Izzy guessed that sort of thing was a winner with ladies. On the other hand, given the distance Mrs O’Connell was ready to go to get her husband (or her son, for that matter) out of trouble, and the lengths she proved capable of going to, she was at least equally as stubborn, stalwart, and determined as O’Connell was. Those two deserved each other. They should probably have been living happily ever after in some manor in that famous sun-forsaken London, supporting, loving, kissing and fighting each other like any other happy couple would. Like a bloody fairy tale.

Well, they probably were, until some crackpot decided the end of the world was nigh and made an attempt to materialise his nice little project. That was about as much as Izzy had registered this time, not being included in the ‘Let’s save the world tonight’ gang and being quite happy about it. All he had to do was provide transportation. Nobody would be getting shot this time.

Those two last bits Mrs O’Connell had firmly stated the morning they left Cairo, and the kid had nodded fervently. Which hadn’t kept Izzy from muttering under his breath or mentally counting the times when O’Connell had said, just as earnestly, that he wasn’t going to let his best pilot get shot. Of course, he always added that it was above all up to the pilot in question to cover his ass. Last time Izzy had heard that, he had taken it literally. It had resulted in a bullet hitting the fleshy part of his anatomy while he tried to run for cover. Naturally, he still hadn’t quite forgiven O’Connell for that. Hell, sometimes he had even wondered whether the bloody American kept him around to act more as a bullet repellent than as a pilot.

Izzy gave another yawn and automatically checked the slightly crumpled map beside the helm, scratching his stiff neck. He glanced down at Alex, who was still looking around as though this was the first time he was seeing dunes. The pilot knew for a fact it wasn’t. To tell the truth, he was a bit puzzled. This was the most silent the kid had been for the last three days. The absence of yet another question on how exactly he got Dee off the ground yet was a little unsettling.

“Bored yet?” he asked in a low voice, not particularly wanting to wake up the other passengers.

“Nope,” the kid answered, still staring. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m used to—hey, I ain’t bored, this is my job.”

“You sure look like you are.”

Izzy slipped a quick half-glare in the boy’s general direction. “You got a smartass mouth on you, kid.”

“Yeah.” A grin. “I get that a lot. Guess it runs in the family.”

“Which side?”

“Both. Mum often gets mad at Dad and Uncle Jon for that. I think she thinks they’re a bad example.”

“Figures.”

Silence settled again, filled mainly by the flapping sound of the propellers at the stern. It was calm, and in a way, restful. But when Izzy took a second glance at the boy, he found him wearing a slightly different expression on his face. It looked more set, and a bit whiter.

Izzy was not an idiot. He had quickly worked out that the kid was thinking about his father and his uncle and that there was something he was supposed to say that should make him feel a bit better about that. Problem was, he had absolutely no cue of what it was he was supposed to say. Knowing you had to do something was one thing; deciding to actually do it was a camel of a different colour entirely.

“So,” he began rather awkwardly, “can’t wait to bring ‘em back, huh?”

Alex looked up and stared up at him for a full minute, his face a blend of many different expressions, including some Izzy didn’t recognise. Then he began to snort helplessly.

“_That_ has got to be the lamest attempt at cheering someone up I’ve ever heard!” he said when he finally caught his breath, trying hard to keep it low and wiping the tears of laughter off his eyes. Izzy shook his head, frankly disgusted. _If that’s what you get for tryin’ to help people…_

He was surprised to hear the boy say, “Thanks, though.” And even more surprised when he saw that the trademark O’Connell grin had come back full-force. That’s when the pilot noticed this grin was a bit crooked, giving the kid a subtly ironic, mischievous look when he smiled.

_Well. So that’s what you get for mixing up a dashing American adventurer and a headstrong English librarian. Hell of a result._

As Izzy watched him slyly from the corner of his eye, Alex’s own eyes went very round and his mouth opened as though of its own accord just as he exclaimed, “What the hell is _that_?”

Startled, Izzy peered at the horizon and found what the kid was referring to: a slim column of thick, dark smoke drifting up from something large and black on the ground, like a stain. He frowned, wondering exactly why someone would set fire to something in the middle of the desert, and how. And not quite sure whether it was important enough to go down and start nosing around.

The answer to that came quite unexpectedly from behind, startling the two occupants of the cabin.

“Alex, language.”

“Sorry, Mum,” said the kid, not taking his eyes off the smoke. “D’you think it’s got something to do with them?”

Evelyn O’Connell came to stand behind her son to peer through the window; she bent to get a better look, keeping a hand above her for support. Her hair was all mussed up and dusty, her clothes rumpled and her face still betrayed tell-tale signs of recent sleep, and too little at that.

She looked a far cry from the dazzling, dashing beauties Izzy saw once in a while in the moving pictures, yet suddenly it hit him in the face why O’Connell had held onto her and not let go in eleven years.

Not that he could have put it in words, though.

“This spot is not part of any usual road,” came a low-pitched, accented voice behind them, making Izzy jump and almost let go of the helm. “It cannot be anything but them.”

“Do you think… do you think there is somebody in that… in that wreck?” asked Mrs O’Connell, her voice shaking ever so slightly. The Medjai guy shook his head.

“No-one can tell for sure from up here. We’ll have to go down and check.”

Mrs O’Connell nodded, looking a bit pale. Izzy would have liked to have something clever to say that would cheer her up, but after his fiasco with the kid he preferred to tread this kind of ground with extra caution. Which for him meant going into full pilot mode and barking at everybody to strap themselves up, that he didn’t want anyone to stupidly go over the bloody rail during a simple landing manoeuvre. And actually avoiding Mrs O’Connell’s eyes when she told him to watch his mouth in front of her son.

He managed to catch the kid’s glance, though, and he got a small smile from him in return. Tight-lipped, from a somewhat pale face, but a smile all the same. Kind of a ‘You got away pretty easy’ smile.

Definitely something else, that kid.

* * *

This journey was definitely turning a bit repetitive. Of course there was something enchanting about the Egyptian desert – though they must have crossed the borders of Egypt and possibly Sudan at some point, because they could see the great flat stretch of the Blue Nile in the distance to their right – especially in the early and late hours of the day… But they would soon reach the end of their third whole day of camel-back trekking and, frankly, as beautiful as the desert was, Jonathan would have liked it much better if he had watched it from the dirigible of that Izzy character’s, with a cup of tea or (even better) a glass of brandy and soda, very light on the soda. Also decent sandwiches, too.

And, above all, with neither hide nor hair of a camel in sight.

Now that he had had three days and nights to compare means of transportation, Jonathan found that he actually missed Izzy’s old, patched contraption. Travelling on a dirigible was not unlike sailing, minus the swell. Sure, they’d had a few bumps along the ride, mainly due to their least favourite just-risen-from-the-dead mummy pal, but, all in all, it had been a fairly enjoyable ride. Putting aside any worried thoughts of Alex, of course.

Jonathan yawned and scratched his neck. Although the sun had begun sinking into the horizon, it was still beating down upon their heads like a hammer on twenty or so cloth-covered nails (not counting the camels). The heat on his head and neck had yet to abate despite the sort of scarf he wore on his head and the collar of his jacket that he had put up. Good thing it took a lot for him to sunburn. Tom wasn’t so lucky.

However, of all the little downsides to their current situation, it was not the camels, the sun, or even the icy glare of Hamilton he could almost feel on his back every now and then that really bothered Jonathan. No, what really irked him, what aggravated him to no end was that Rick, Tom and him hadn’t really thought about what was in the lorry before they set it on fire.

If they had, they probably would _not have left the rest of the _food_ in it!_

Jonathan felt a stupid idiot. The only thought that consoled him through the growls of his empty stomach was that the other two most likely felt like stupid idiots as well. Especially Tom, who was currently staring despondently at the head of his camel, as though imagining a dressing that could make it edible. Jonathan knew better than to tell him that no dressing or cooking, as rich and tasty as it was, could ever make camel meat pass for decent food.

Then again…

Jonathan shook his head to break this dangerous train of thoughts, bewildered and not a little disgusted that his own mouth had been watering at the mental picture of a camel roasting with aromatic herbs and trimmings. As though reading his mind, his mount gave a twitch that almost jerked its unprepared rider off, and skidded to a halt.

“Oh, no you won’t,” Jonathan muttered, pulling the reins and trying to urge the beast forwards with his foot, “not this time.” He could see the other riders overtake him, bobbing up and down with the tranquil pace of their camels, and Tom slowed down, giving him an inquiring look.

“Come _on_, you gormless useless blighter…”

He was still trying to make his camel at least budge when he came up with an idea. Leaning towards the camel’s head, he grabbed one hairy ear, making the animal give a strangled roar of protest, and said in his coldest, most earnest voice, “Look here, you. I’m sick and tired of these capers of yours. Now you’re going to do exactly as I say, or else I consider you as my emergency food supply. And I’m _hungry_.”

The camel batted the other ear and let out a whine. Jonathan pulled a bit harder on the handful of ear. “I bet you taste horrible too, but I’m quite ready to overlook this detail – we _have_ been living off the stuff they called ‘stew’ for three days after all. The others are famished too, methinks, so you’d better get going again, now, don’t you think?”

Either the camel understood the gist of its rider’s words, or else it had grown tired of being pulled by the ear; anyway, it shook its head in a ruffled sort of way and started to walk again. Jonathan couldn’t keep a wide grin off his face, and when Tom asked him the reason for such glee, he told him.

Tom let out one of his guffaws that made his shoulders shake.

“Why, you – that was downright nasty!”

“Probably, but at least it’s paying attention now.”

Tom shot him a sideways glance. “I wouldn’t even put it past you anyway. You certainly have a way with animals. Not sure exactly what kind of way, though – you always seem to be viewing them as hypothetical food.”

“Not all of them,” Jonathan protested, as Tom started grinning. “Come on, I’m not that bad – I’m a gentleman, not a bloody caveman, for cripes’ sake.” He paused for a second as a memory resurfaced, and looked back at Tom thoughtfully. “That ram did look tasty for a second though, after four days without food, didn’t it?”

Tom sniggered and shook his head. “Not after it beat the snot out of us it didn’t. Who would have thought those girls kept a ram in the basement, anyway?”

“Didn’t they mistake it for a sheep?”

Tom nodded, still grinning. Jon shook his head.

“Oh, you can joke all you want, but I wasn’t the one who’d discovered such a _perfect_ way to sneak in.”

A second or two passed, during which Tom’s smile gradually faded, and Jonathan’s eyes turned as though of their own accord to the yellowish horizon. As he stared at nothing in particular, a more recent memory sneaked its way into his mind and brought a somewhat wry smile. Tom’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “What’s that look for?”

“Oh, it’s just that I promised Alex I’d tell him this one when he’s a bit older. Not the whole story, obviously, though.” _This one and some others, too._ “Guess I’d better wait till he’s of age for that. Can’t have his mother have my skin for a hearthrug, can I?”

“Jon, your skin would not be enough for a napkin, let alone a hearthrug.”

“True enough.”

There was a beat, which stretched into a moment. During this relatively short time Jonathan noticed a slight change in Tom; something funny settled on his face and he seemed to sag a little bit on his saddle. It was subtle, but it was so uncharacteristic of his old friend that he peered at the broad face, wondering what could have brought on this sudden turn. He knew he wouldn’t have to wait very long for some kind of explanation. The Liverpudlian had never been good at this game.

Then Tom gave a small shrug and answered the unspoken question. He said it quickly, but the words sounded as though they were being dragged out against his will.

“Assuming you _will_ be able to tell him someday. I mean, our outlook’s glum enough. You know, world ending tonight and all that rubbish.”

Jonathan was a little taken aback at that. It even made him a wee bit ill at ease. Fact was, he didn’t have a clue how to answer that one – Tom was usually the optimist, finding silver linings everywhere. This sudden gloom on his part was unsettling.

To be honest, Jonathan had had something of a funny feeling himself about the whole thing. Maybe it was the result of being the ‘rescued party’, as Rick had put it, and being fairly short of friendly faces around, but it had barely been enough to make him more than occasionally slightly uncomfortable.

“Right,” he ventured uncertainly, “and let’s not forget that we burned the food. So now we’ve got not only Hamilton, his minions and a jackal-headed army from Hell after us, but hunger as well. Wonder what will get to us first.” His attempt at a joke failed to have the expected effect as Tom gave the shadow of his ordinary bright grin and shrugged again. Jonathan was starting to worry a little bit.

Eventually Tom cast him a sideways glance and rolled his eyes. “I’m probably being an arse here,” he muttered with the beginning of a smile, “but now _that_ is stupid. I mean, I know we’re not going to die from a day of fasting –”

The fact that his stomach chose that very moment to let out a long, loud growl took a lot of weight off his words. It also took a lot of weight off the atmosphere. Jonathan shot him a sarcastic look.

“Besides,” continued Tom in a would-be natural sort of voice, his ears even pinker than they already were after three days of camel-riding in the sun, “there’s always your camel solution to consider.”

The camel in question gave a bleating, alarmed sort of roar and picked up pace. Jonathan beamed, quite delighted. “Do you know,” he said thoughtfully, “I think this little idea of mine is not the worst I’ve ever had.”

“C’mon, Jonathan,” came a voice tinged with both American accent and smiling sarcasm, “you wouldn’t have the heart to actually eat that faithful mount of yours, would you?”

“Not sure about the stomach, old boy, but I do heartily feel like roasting this thing and saving you a big chunk,” Jonathan replied good-naturedly as Rick pulled on the reins of his camel to ride beside them. “What do you say to that?”

The American shook his head. “I say it won’t be necessary. According to what a couple of agents were chatting about in the back, there’s a reception party at Ahm Shere. So I guess we’ll get some food when we get there, which should be…” He squinted up at the sun and seemed to think for a second. “…In a couple of hours.”

“Heard that as well, didn’t you,” muttered Jonathan, rolling his eyes. Rick grinned his trademark four-hundred-teeth grin.

“Thanks for the offer, though. Too bad for you guys, I bet you’ve never tasted camel meat.”

“And thank goodness for that. I’m sure the insides of this air-brained mountain of hair and flesh smell worse than the outside does.”

Rick snorted and fell behind to refill his water skin. Thankfully all the water cans had not been stored in the lorry; there was a couple left on the car that brought up the rear. When he was gone, it was Tom’s turn to look pointedly at Jonathan.

“Erm, about the schedule and us arriving in a couple of hours and stuff –”

“What?”

Tom jerked his head in Rick’s general direction. “_He_ did the maths. Hamilton asked him – on account of him knowing the desert and the way to Ahm Shere – and I heard the answer.”

_Two hours…_ After three days of endless, repetitive desert trekking, the deadline suddenly looked much closer and coming faster than Jonathan would like. If Tom was right, and the pyramid was destroyed during the night, it meant that they probably would still be inside at the moment. That is, if they could even find a way to stop Hamilton’s little project involving the Army of Anubis, the human race, and the total annihilation of the second by the first.

The funny feeling began to flesh out.

Apparently, Tom had had the same line of thought, because his cheeks looked a little bit paler under his sunburn.

“What are the odds of the Medjai waltzing in to save the day?” he muttered, peering at the horizon as if waiting for black silhouettes on horses to materialise out of nowhere.

Jonathan winced. “Not so good.”

Tom was silent for a full minute. But then he turned to his old friend with a small smile on his face.

“Then again, what were the odds of you surviving two encounters with the living dead?”

That actually elicited a grin from Jonathan. If Tom Ferguson could still see the glass half-full, then things weren’t completely hopeless yet. Besides, he did have a point.

“About as good as you surviving this one,” he replied with a smirk.

Tom nodded, and stopped talking. That was when Jonathan noticed how silent the rest of the party was. The only human-made noise (or sort of) that they could hear was the motor of the car a few feet away behind them. Suddenly he found himself not so keen on chatting, either.

Nobody spoke during the next two hours or so.

* * *

Sunset was already well under way when the party reached their final destination. An enormous stretch of sky hung over the desert like a great big blue piece of canvas, and the last remnants of what had been a rich, golden light fell on everyone in sight. Every face seemed to be wearing the same tense expression, and Rick marvelled at the fact that, even though the mellow Egyptian sunset light almost always seemed to make everything appear softer than it actually was, everyone around him appeared nothing but grim and very much closed off. Ferguson kept his mouth clamped shut, and even Jonathan hadn’t piped a single word in a couple of hours. He just sat a little stiffly on his saddle, staring down at the sand right in front of him and looking uncharacteristically subdued.

Rick didn’t feel afraid, properly speaking. He felt determined to do anything necessary to stop Hamilton; sick and angry at the prospect of yet another maniac hell bent on doing what he wanted at the cost of mowing down a large part of humanity; wondering exactly what they were going to find down there, in that pyramid; truthfully, he did feel somewhat naked without at least a shotgun at his side… but not really _afraid_.

In fact, it reminded him very much of a few somewhat similar situations he’d gotten into in his days as a legionnaire, particularly the one that had ended his career in the French Foreign Legion: the Hamunaptra battle. That one had been bad, _bad_ news from the very beginning. Rick had had a nagging doubt at the time – and hindsight had turned the doubt into a certainty – that the colonel in charge of their garrison had known that the Tuareg fiercely guarding the area outnumbered them by hundreds. Maybe the man had truly deluded himself into thinking that his sneaking in to the City of the Dead without orders, then around the place without a certainty or anything to guide him to the Ancient Egyptians’ treasure and back out again was a good idea.

And maybe Rick would have had no problem with that, had Colonel Saint-Herblain decided to act on this on his own, without involving anyone else. But he had to talk the men into the plan. Many as a result had gone willing, lured by the promise of silver and gold and eternal glory. Quite a few had gone enthusiastically, the rest reluctantly, all ill-trained and ill-equipped for such an operation. Rick wondered how many had realised Saint-Herblain had merely used them as cannon fodder, and at which point. To this day, he still did not know whether a mutiny before they left their outpost would have saved lives. Some men were so intent on gold that it made it hard for them to see anything else.

The Tuareg had been watching them from an early stage, and once they had been sure the legionnaires had no place to run to, they had attacked. At the crack of dawn.

Rick remembered how Saint-Herblain, his face ashen, had told them that they had to fight for French honour and for – how’d he put it? – _panache_. That it was like the Alamo, or something. Something to do for the country you fight for… never mind that they were supposed to fight for French interests and that the French Republic had absolutely no business in the matter. Being a non-commissioned officer and having to obey his superior’s orders, Rick had prepared his men without a word. But the part of him that was usually shrugging and rolling his eyes at stunts and speeches like that was now seething. Literally boiling with anger. Because you don’t _do_ things like that when you’re responsible for the lives of a hundred men. You don’t go out on a wild goose chase when you don’t even know whether you’ll find what you were looking for, but know for a fact that odds are stacked so high against you.

Come to think of it, Hamilton and Saint-Herblain had a lot in common.

He hadn’t blamed Beni for running off, really. Rather, he had been furious at the little bastard for running off and closing the door in his face.

Rick supposed that, if he stopped being sarcastic about it for one second, he could consider himself a man of honour. At least, that was what Ardeth had once said, and though the American was loath to admit it, Ardeth was right about a number of things. One thing he didn’t consider ‘honourable’ was convincing a whole garrison to go in search of a hypothetical treasure in the middle of unsafe territory, and when under attack, tell the men they had to go down fighting for their country, and that it was the best option. The only one, really, except running off.

Which every man should have done, but one. Carrying out an ill-conceived operation to try to take a position with no real strategic importance with such significant loss was inexcusable. The least you could do, after you messed up so bad, was to face the consequences of your actions. And Saint-Herblain had done just the opposite. He had scampered right off, and left his men to their fate – a fate that had been, at the moment, being slaughtered one after the other.

Dying for one man’s whim did not exactly fit Rick’s idea of honour.

Fighting for the lives of millions did seem a little more like it. Theoretically, that’s what you choose to be a soldier for. He had thrown himself into the Legion after that thing with Izzy, the Italian hitman, and the belly-dancer girl because the alternative had been serious jail time, but the spirit had appealed to him.

But why the hell, he thought, swearing under his breath as he looked over at the centre of the camp, did it have to be him on the case _again_? After all, he’d been through being a soldier for fourteen years now, and in the end that had been a pretty easy choice to make. No more being the one to clean up the mess somebody else was making or had left behind.

_Yeah, right. As if._

Rick snorted quietly as he got down his camel and tied it up. The conclusion he’d just reached reminded him a lot of the pillow talk he’d had with Evy the morning after the theft of the Diamond. He’d chided her then for wanting to fix any old sort of disorder, no matter who had created it in the first place. Evelyn O’Connell was like that: willing to take responsibility for her and other people’s messes so that the world could keep turning. It was one of the minor things Rick thought he could definitely do without most of the time. But it was also something that was a big part of his wife’s unyielding, indomitable, passionate character – and, as it was, he definitely couldn’t do without her character to anchor him in reality.

That was why he had come so close to completely losing it as he had entered the pyramid last time to go after the bastards who had murdered his wife.

A camel nuzzled him none too gently from behind, jerking him out of his line of thoughts, and he turned to see which one it was. Sure enough, Jonathan’s ‘faithful mount’ stared at him glumly under heavy eyelids and long camel’s lashes. He almost appeared to be sulking.

“Odds are you’re not gonna get eaten tonight, buddy,” Rick said, checking that the rope was properly tied to its post in the ground. “Relax.”

He could have sworn there was something like relief in the way the beast shook his head and returned to staring placidly at the bustle in front of him. Rick’s eyes followed. All he could see was a number of backs turned to him, all dressed in the same dark suit.

One of the guys in front of him blocking the centre of the camp from his view moved, and he could finally see properly. What he saw there made him stare for a moment, his eyes narrowed.

Obviously, some of Hamilton’s men had been there for a while – or else they worked damn fast. Their tents were bigger, more built to last than the ones he had gotten used to in three nights. There was a buzz, a sense of urgency and efficiency that somehow reminded him of the army, and he didn’t like that idea at all. It felt too well organised. But what was drawing his gaze most of all was the big hole in the middle, lit by several floodlights, where stood ten or twelve feet of big square yellowish stones set in a triangular shape, with an approximate-looking scorpion on the top that ought to have been supporting something…

They had dug up the top of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere.

He heard a low whistle behind him, and an equally low English-accented voice mutter, “Well, they certainly didn’t do their job by half. That’s motivation for you.”

“These blokes probably haven’t had anything else to do for the past weeks,” said another voice behind Rick. “Must be dead easy to get bored when you can’t pick up the wireless…”

The American turned to see Jonathan raise his eyebrows at Ferguson, who was making a rather successful attempt at a goofy grin despite the lack of colour in his cheeks. He felt the corners of his own mouth upturn slightly in spite of himself.

“So, Jon, is that where you took that diamond from?” asked Ferguson, taking a step closer to the pyramid and squinting at the skeletal sculpture of a scorpion on the top. Jonathan nodded dismally.

“Yes. Such a shame, really. I risked my _life_ to get the bloody thing off the ground, and now they’re going to put it back.” Then he bit his lip and shot a quick glance at Ferguson, who looked surprised.

“You risked your – how’s that?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” asked Rick, who, besides the fact that he was enjoying greatly the way Jonathan’s ears were growing pinker by the second, actually welcomed the break in the general tension. “Izzy had showed up on his dirigible in the nick of time to pick us up from the pyramid, and _he_ –” here he jerked a thumb in Jonathan’s direction “– must have slipped or something, because next thing we knew he was dangling upside down from the net on the side of the dirigible. Almost gave us a heart attack. That’s when he saw that diamond.”

Something of a smirk was creeping into Ferguson’s wide-eyed look. He stared incredulously at Jonathan.

“Don’t tell me he – oh, c’mon Jon, even _you_ wouldn’t be stupid enough to –” He let out a short bark of laughter, and Jonathan threw him a dirty glare. Rick couldn’t help but snort.

“Of course he did. Damn heavy thing, too, nearly pulled him down, and nearly pulled _me_ down when I grabbed him. I should’ve just let them both fall then and saved me a world of trouble.”

He grinned brightly at his brother-in-law, who seemed to have momentarily misplaced his sense of humour and looked distinctly miffed. Ferguson gave a low chuckle.

“Never pictured you as the heroic type, Jon. You must’ve looked quite dashing there, hanging down arse over tip like that.”

“Oh, sod off, both of you,” Jonathan muttered under his breath, looking quite determined to remain righteously annoyed despite the fact that a smile seemed to be pulling decidedly at his mouth.

Ferguson shrugged with a grin, then turned his back on what they could see of the pyramid. He started back toward the camp, stopping to call at Rick and Jonathan from over his shoulder, “I thought you were hungry. Come on, it’s now or never, Hamilton wants to open the pyramid when night has completely fallen. Don’t know about you, but I’m not going in there on an empty stomach. Might be our last meal, too,” Rick thought he heard him mumble in an undertone. He wondered at that as he watched the Liverpudlian stride away. The man hadn’t struck him as the pessimistic type of guy so far.

Of course, odds were that he had simply never found himself in such a mess before.

He followed Ferguson from a distance, remembering Hamilton’s snide remark about the ‘company’ he kept. Obviously his boss didn’t consider hanging out with the prisoners an intelligent thing to do. His brother-in-law fell into step beside him, apparently not having caught Ferguson’s little grim aside.

“He’s right,” Rick said with a quick look at Ferguson’s retreating back, “let’s get some food.”

“See, now you’re making _sense_,” Jonathan agreed fervently, before adding edgeways in Rick’s direction, “At last, we can eat something we haven’t burned.”

Rick shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. “You’re never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”

This time, it was with a grin that Jonathan answered him. “Never, my good son, I’m afraid.”

Dinner was a quiet, tense business. Sitting on the sand eating lumpy stew while being closely watched with both unfriendly eyes and a few loaded, equally unfriendly-looking guns was not an incentive for feeling at ease. Rick downed his portion as fast as he could, and he could guess, from the way Jonathan almost choked on his stew, that he was not the only one who wanted to have the whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ferguson barely swallowing anything, despite his earlier remark about empty stomachs. The man looked slightly green around the edges. As for Hamilton, he sat neatly on a blanket on the sand, eating with as much refinement as though he was sharing a lamb and mint sauce with the latest King of England1.

Ten minutes later, the sun had sunk entirely below the horizon, and everybody was gathered around the pyramid. Even though only the top part had been dug out it still towered over their heads from a dozen feet. The light-coloured stones looked so tightly woven together that nobody could have dislodged one. But then, Rick had a hunch they might not need to.

Hamilton appeared, looking cleaner than ever, making every other crony of his look scruffy and dirty in comparison. He held aloft the Diamond of Ahm Shere and began climbing the stones to the scorpion on the top in the centre of the floodlights. It struck Rick – who had not seen it in two years – how big that diamond actually was, and what a miracle it was that nobody had attempted to steal it before for its sheer market value. To him, however, the intricate pattern of pearl and gold made it look ponderous and heavy rather than beautiful.

He noticed Jonathan’s slightly slanted eyes go round as he squirmed on his spot. The American suppressed a sarcastic chuckle. If there had been the slightest chance that his brother-in-law could have leaped at the diamond, run with it under his arm and gotten away with it, he surely would have tried.

Unfortunately, there was no chance in hell.

More straight-backed and pompous than ever, Hamilton delicately put the diamond in the golden scorpion’s pincers. Then he stepped back and all but dropped to the ground, thrown off balance by the shudder that worked its way from the top to the very foundations of the structure. Rick could feel it go down into the sand beneath his feet. When it was over, something gave an ominous groan far beneath the ground.

The beat of his heart sped up slightly. Suddenly he was aware how much the temperature had dropped in so little time since sunset.

While Hamilton climbed down the stones, his face showing nothing but excitement and expectation, Rick glanced sideways at Jonathan. He was still staring at the diamond, but the look on his face had changed: suddenly his features were frozen in apprehension and something like denial. As though the same phrase was going over and over in his head, like a broken record, as it did in Rick’s mind – _don’t open don’t open don’t open…_

There was a sort of snap, and a small cloud of dust sprang from between two large stones.

Hamilton made a sign. A couple of agents stepped in to dislodge the stone blocks and more men came to help them put them on the ground.

There stood an entrance large and high enough for a man to walk in without even bending much. Being closest to the makeshift door, Rick, along with Hamilton, Jonathan, Ferguson and a couple of other agents, peered inside.

What he could make out when his eyes adjusted to the darkness sent a jolt to his stomach. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered without even realising it. Nobody seemed to hear him.

“Bloody hell!” said Ferguson weakly. Jonathan, his face white in the floodlights, didn’t say anything.

Rick nodded grimly. “Hell’s about right, yeah.”

When the Pyramid of Ahm Shere had sunk into the sand, the oasis that Anubis had created to surround it had been sucked into the ground as well, and into the structure. Now, as they stared at the inside of what one of the ways into the tall gold and stone chambers had become, all they could see was dark green.

The oasis had overrun the pyramid and cosily settled inside it. Creepers and lianas twisted their way around the pillars, across the floor, along the ceiling. They could even hear a faint gurgling noise from the bowels of the thing, as a tiny stream would drip from a higher point down into a pond. Aside from this sound, however, almost nothing else.

It was the jungle again.

* * *

1Reference to Edward VIII’s 11 month reign from January to December 1936 and George VI’s subsequent coronation in May 1937.


	16. Underture

To say Evelyn O’Connell felt a little out of place would have been an understatement, albeit a small one.

She had helped Izzy land his dirigible in the middle of the Medjai camp, downed her supper without really stopping to appreciate the taste or even acknowledge what it was she was eating, and now she was left to her own devices while everyone got ready. This was a situation she was not at all accustomed to. She was a librarian, an Egyptologist, a scientist of ancient history, a problem-solver. Right now, though, she did not know exactly where she should be and what she should, or even could, do. This state of forced uncertainty was unbearable.

The sun was going down on Egypt in the truly spectacular way that was unique to the place. There was something both sharp and mellow to the light, the way it appeared to envelop everything in bright gold like gift wrap around a Christmas present. Of course, the fact that this particular present included gleaming scimitars and machine guns made the whole thing feel a little bit bizarre.

Nobody seemed to pay any mind to the rich light, despite the definite possibility that at least some of the Medjai in the camp would not live to see the sun come up again if Hamilton was even partly successful. Everyone was walking among or in and out of the tents, looking determined and purposeful.

This especially made Evelyn O’Connell feel out of place.

There was also the fact that, ever since sunrise, she had been unable to shake a lingering anxiety, as though lead was slowly but surely settling into the pit of her stomach. She wondered whether this was anything like the ‘weird feeling’ Rick claimed to have whenever she was about to read books she shouldn’t read aloud or open chests she shouldn’t open. If it was, then she made a note to listen to him a little bit more in the future. This kind of feeling certainly was difficult to ignore.

Maybe the sight – the sheer stench, rather – of the still-glowing remnants of the lorry they had found had brought this anxiety. It had been such a relief to hear Ardeth say that nobody had been inside when it blew up. Evy was not at all squeamish around thousand-years-old mummified corpses, but when it came down to facing the possible loss of one or two of the men she loved most and in such horrific circumstances… Well, suffice it to say that for a closer look she had waited until Ardeth was absolutely positive that there was no gory remains to stare her in the face and impress upon her how spectacularly she had failed them. If he was aware of her repugnance and the reason behind it, he tactfully avoided to mention it.

As for why that lorry had blown up, there were only three possibilities that held water: either the Chamber of Horus – as Sheikh al-Nazar had said the name of the organisation Thomas Ferguson worked for was – had set fire to their own vehicle, and that was illogic; or else Rick and Jonathan were the ones who somehow managed to blow it up, and that was probable; or else it had been an accident, which was not impossible (since nobody had been in it the lorry must have been stationary, thus not creating any spark) but improbable.

Whatever had happened, Charles Hamilton and his men had waltzed off, taking the two prisoners with them.

Needless to say, Alex had waited for his mother and Ardeth with barely concealed agitation. He was stamping his foot with impatience and almost shaking when they had got back on the dirigible. And had let out a suppressed but still perfectly audible ‘_Whew!_’ when Evelyn had told him that nobody appeared to have died in the explosion.

They had reached the Medjai camp by sunset.

Evy had not quite expected this. She had thought they were going to an appointed place where the leaders of the Twelve Tribes Ardeth had told her about could join them – a sort of war camp with a few tents and some poles to tie the camels to.

She frankly had not expected the children to be there.

The women had not been a surprise. The Medjai were warriors and scholars, often at the same time, men and women both. The descendants of the Pharaohs’ personal guard, they had to use every set of arms they could get to protect Hamunaptra and other places, less well-known and only slightly less dangerous. As Evelyn had understood it, they had come close to dying down around the 4th Century; it was then, more or less, that they had created the position of High Commander, to bring all tribes together in an hour of need. About a third of those had been women, as were about half of the current Elders. This had surprised Evy at first. After all, in England women only obtained the right to vote about ten years ago – why, they still didn’t have it in France, their nearest neighbour.

But war was not for children. And yet there they were, helping with menial work, taking care of the animals, or playing hide-and-seek among the tents.

Alex had gone off exploring after she had made him swear that he would not get into anyone’s way or start any mischief. She knew her son to be fairly well-behaved around even relative strangers when he had a mind to, but she also was very much aware that, when nervous, he had something of a propensity to trigger catastrophes without the slightest malicious intent.

This had amused Rick to no end when Evy first pointed it out innocently. Of course, he had teased her mercilessly about this, pretending to wonder ‘who he had gotten it from’. She had huffed, pointedly ignoring the memory of the mighty shambles their eight-year-old son had single-handedly caused at the temple where they had found the Bracelet of Anubis.

Of course, Jonathan had roared with laughter when Rick had told him about the whole pillar business. And, considering the way Alex had so quickly lost all remorse and had kept grinning at her afterwards, there was absolutely no doubt that his uncle had been sharing with him a story or two about Evelyn’s frequent little bouts of clumsiness during her time as the librarian of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. And she would willingly have bet her beloved small stone painting of Hatshepsut that stood on her bedside table that at least one of the stories Jonathan had told his nephew was about her accidentally knocking down all the bookshelves of the Cairo Museum library.

_Honestly, those three…_

The reality of the situation came back to her with such force it felt like being splashed in the face with icy water. She had to get them back. She just _had_ to. The alternative was simply unimaginable.

Evy started when someone spoke to her and relaxed when she recognised the voice.

“We are ready to begin the meeting,” Ardeth said, his tone serious but friendly. She nodded and stood up, dusting herself off and smoothing her rumpled clothes as best as she could. Although a few of the people she was about to meet knew her already, she thought it best to try to make a good impression – and, truth to be told, she did feel a little nervous. After all, it was up to the Council of Elders to decide what the Medjai’s course of action was going to be in the next hours.

It was very considerate of Ardeth, really, to fetch her himself while as the High Commander he could, maybe even should, have sent someone.

Alex was currently engaged in lively discussion with a slightly younger girl Evelyn recognised as Maira, Ardeth’s eldest. The conversation was in two languages and backed by a good deal of gestures, as neither exactly mastered the other’s language. This did not seem to deter them, Evy noticed amusedly, and it was on this slightly cheerful note that she stepped into a large tent after Ardeth, who courteously drew back the canvas to let her pass.

The inside of the tent was well enough lit, with rich colours and comfortable-looking cushions strewn in a circle. The entire Council were seated there, all members looking up when Ardeth and Evelyn entered. She bowed respectfully, and many gave her an answering bow of their head in acknowledgement.

“Sit down, Evelyn O’Connell,” said the oldest Elder, Fatheya, a deceptively frail-looking old woman sitting in front of the entrance. “We were just about to start.”

Evy sat down on unoccupied cushions beside Ardeth, who cast a last sweeping glance at the people in the tent before joining her.

“First of all,” he said, “let me remind all of you –” here he looked at everyone in turn, but Evelyn had the fleeting impression that he lingered half a second’s time on her in particular “– that everything you have to say will be taken in consideration. Just remember that time is of the essence and we should make the most of the moments we have left. Elder Atef, I believe you have a suggestion.”

Elder Atef’s face was sharp, his eyes beady, and when he spoke there was a controlled sort of urgency in his voice. “Indeed I do. Commander, I know that the attack two days ago failed, and I believe I understand the reasons of this failure. But couldn’t we organise another, maybe stealthier attack, that would strike down their leader and cancel the whole operation?”

Evelyn listened with rapt attention, grateful for the use of English – for her benefit, no doubt – and found herself rather in agreement with him. Anything that could stop the search party from entering the Pyramid sounded good in her book, especially since it was only a matter of hours before the complete and utter destruction of Ahm Shere.

But Ardeth shook his head.

“I have sent scouts ahead for the past two days, with instructions to look for any weakness. Unfortunately, Hamilton now constantly keeps men close, which means that we can’t attack from afar. To get to him would mean first getting through them, and we’ve already tried just that.”

There was a silence, during which Evelyn thought about the Medjai’s last attempt to ‘get to’ Hamilton. Ardeth had parted very reluctantly with enough bits of information for her to put together the jigsaw of that night. The skirmish had abruptly ended when Rick – always one to grab an opportunity when he saw it, he’d been right in the middle of the fray – had failed to stop Hamilton from bringing down a gun on the side of his head. The Englishman had cocked his gun and stared at Ardeth, fully aware of who he was, what he was, and ready to gamble everything on the basis that the Medjai would not risk getting O’Connell killed.

And that gamble had proved successful. Evelyn wondered what had been Ardeth’s thoughts after this, and wondered about the Elders and the Chieftains, as well. She had known, without a doubt, that Ardeth was the kind of man to lay down his life for the people he considered friends, and that thought very much humbled her. But what really shook her was the knowledge that he was also willing to risk the success of a mission and the responsibilities he had as the High Commander of the Medjai for the life of one of them.

That fact, when you knew Ardeth Bay as Evelyn knew him, was earth-shattering. Apparently his authority hadn’t seemed to weaken since that night, but she kept a close watch on the interactions between Elders and Commander all the same.

The turn had come for Pyhia, one of the youngest Elders – barely fifty or fifty-five years old – to speak out.

“Yet there is surely something we can do – we must. As we speak Hamilton is entering Ahm Shere with his men, and within hours, he will have raised the Army of Anubis. Is there nothing the Medjai can do but stand tall against the jackals from the ancient hells?”

Pyhia was one of the Elders that Evelyn knew best. Despite being comparatively young, she often used a convoluted phrasing that was often confusing, both in Arabic and English. However, behind the formal words was a question bordering on insolence: in short, were the Medjai only good for battling against Anubis’ Army and useless for any other, more elaborate, plan?

A whisper ran through the tent, but Ardeth raised his hands immediately. A hush fell despite some mild glares thrown in Pyhia’s direction.

“Please, Elders, now is not the time for sterile arguing. Elder Pyhia, is there some action in particular you would suggest we take?”

“Indeed, Commander. Our topmost priority should be sending a party to overpower the men Hamilton might have left outside the pyramid to guard their camp. It would give us a mighty advantage should they come out again.”

‘_Should they come out again_’… Evelyn couldn’t repress a shudder. She was fully aware that considering every possibility was the rational, reasonable thing to do, but for once she absolutely refused to think in the rational, reasonable way. There was only one outcome to consider seriously, and this was Rick and Jonathan both coming out of the pyramid alive. Unscathed as well would be absolutely splendid.

This made Evelyn shake her head at herself. Maybe not thinking in that blasted rational, reasonable way was a mistake on her part.

Thing was, try as she may to force herself to contemplate a grimmer alternative for logic’s sake, it failed every time.

Ardeth nodded, and Evelyn wrenched her mind back to the situation at hand.

“This is a very sound proposition indeed, Elder Pyhia. I suggest Maher of the Fourth Tribe for this mission – he and his team are especially trained in stealth combat. Given the number of men Hamilton has placed there, Maher’s men should overpower them without unnecessary bloodshed.”

This everybody seemed to approve of, and if the way the Elders began shifting in their seats and gathering their things was anything to judge by, the meeting was nearly over. But Ardeth raised a hand, and everything stilled.

“Evelyn, I hope you are aware that you are absolutely free to make a suggestion. Is there anything you wish to say?”

Evy bit her lip, then cleared her throat. She didn’t think she would sound entirely convincing if the first sound that came out of her mouth was a strangled squeak.

“Yes, there is,” she said with as much calm and composure she could muster. “Commander, I know that the men you will send to Hamilton’s camp are skilled fighters, and I am perfectly aware that the Medjai are undefeated on the battlefield, but –” Here she stopped for a second, because for all the respect she had for the Elders, she did not appreciate the two or three definite sniggers she guessed rather than heard. She let her face naturally assume the stern, scolding expression she often wore when Alex (or Jonathan, for that matter) clearly was not listening to a lecture. Just because most of these men and women knew just how aware she was, having faced and been defeated by the Medjai twice in her time, didn’t mean they had to rub it in her face.

There was something of an awkward pause. Evelyn did not dare look at Ardeth, who if she knew him at all probably had an amused smile dancing in his eyes.

“– _But_ if we want Hamilton’s plan to fail, we should not be fighting only his men and the Army of Anubis if he does manage to raise it.” She took a deep breath. “We need someone to go down into the Pyramid of Ahm Shere as well and try to stop _him_. I volunteer for this task.”

The whispers that filled the tent made the stir caused by Pyhia’s earlier remark sound like a mere ripple. Before Ardeth could react, Elder Raneb, a very fat man with hard features, stared at Evelyn full in the face and spoke to her. Both were sort of unusual for him.

“What on earth could make you believe that the Medjai would not be fit for this kind of mission? I know what you have in mind – you would take the glory for yourself and let the Medjai be slaughtered, when it is you and your kind who have brought danger back to the desert with the Diamond of Ahm Shere!”

This caused an uproar. Most of the Elders sprang, shuffled or waddled to their feet and hurled expletives at Raneb, who stuck out his three chins mulishly, his cold eyes fixed on Evelyn.

She felt every muscle in her body tense, but held out his stare silently.

This was nothing new. She’d had to deal with minds like that all her life. Whether it was because she was a woman or because of her Egyptian mother, some people made their contempt towards her very clear. ‘The mongrel bitch’ and ‘that jumped-up little upstart’ were some of the nicer nicknames she had heard herself referred as throughout her childhood and her university days. For these people, the world was arranged in a stricter classification than the Dewey system, and if you didn’t belong in their category, you had better keep your mouth shut and your head down. Evelyn had long decided that crying herself to sleep every night probably would not help matters, and pointedly kept her back straight and her chin up as much as she could. She had followed her passion, she had learned and studied, and talked to anybody who would listen, mostly Jonathan, who occasionally dealt with nonsense of his own and always had an ear ready for her.

Being called ‘your kind’ in a tone of voice usually reserved for words like ‘filth’ or ‘scum’ is never pleasant. Someone insulting her English heritage turned out to be just as upsetting as someone insulting her Egyptian heritage.

The heated exchanges settled down to a tense hush when Ardeth finally silenced the tent, his eyes blazing.

“That is quite enough! Elder Raneb, I will not have Medjai Elders disrespecting a guest, particularly a guest as honoured as Evelyn O’Connell is. Besides, she and hers bear absolutely no responsibility in what is happening.”

“Yet you cannot deny that the Diamond of Ahm Shere would not have been stolen if it hadn’t been for those foreigners!” the old man snapped, still glaring at Evelyn.

“Raneb, you are acting just as some of the foreigners you hate so much,” came the placid voice of Fatheya, the oldest Elder. “You know, those who cannot and will not be bothered to distinguish one Arab from another.” She leaned towards him, exhaling smoke from her hookah as she said with the shadow of a very wrinkled smile, “In other words, you are an idiot.”

Elder Raneb stiffened, but remained silent. Fatheya turned her startlingly green eyes on Evelyn, who gave a strained nod in acknowledgement.

“Thank you,” Evelyn mouthed rather than said.

Then she straightened up, her head still held high. “I feel I cannot express upon you how much I don’t care for glory,” she said in slow, halting, but grammatically correct Arabic. Although she spoke at the entire Council she could see a few heads turn inconspicuously towards Elder Raneb. “If anyone here has doubts about my loyalties, they should do well to remember that Hamilton is keeping my husband and my brother hostage and will not hesitate to kill them if he feels it necessary.”

She was proud that she managed to keep her voice from shaking and her pronunciation accurate, except for the last sentence, on which she couldn’t help but trip. All eyes were on her. She turned to Ardeth.

Of course, she knew how she could plead her case. She could appeal to his feelings, say that she should be the one to enter the pyramid because it was nobody else’s husband and brother down there… But she’d feel like betraying herself. Evelyn O’Connell did _not_ appeal to anyone’s feelings to obtain something. She did so by being the right person for the job.

So she bored into the jet-black eyes and said levelly, “I am the only person in this tent who has been inside the Pyramid of Ahm Shere. Nobody else would know what to expect or where to go.”

Ardeth looked at her intently, and gave a serious nod.

“Has anyone got something else to say?” he asked in English. Nobody moved a muscle and jaws remained shut.

“All right. Then we are sending Maher’s people to cover the ground around the Pyramid of Ahm Shere, I will lead the rest of the men nearby for the eventuality of a return of the Army of Anubis, and Evelyn will go inside for a direct stealth attack on Hamilton. Council dismissed.”

He bowed where he stood and left the tent. Evelyn followed him.

When she was certain nobody was watching her except Ardeth, her muscles relaxed as one and she let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” said Ardeth, “about Raneb. He never fails to make things… difficult.”

“Don’t be. I’ve heard far worse occasionally, growing up in England.” A cool breeze made her shiver. “Do you think a mortal can really control the Army of Anubis?”

“No, I don’t.” In the quickly fading twilight, Ardeth looked tired, the tension and lack of sleep finally catching up with him. “Anubis does not like it when mortals meddle in the gods’ affairs. That’s why his gifts are double-edged swords. If Hamilton does what he intends to do, it will be Anubis who will control the creatures, not him. He will simply be a tool.”

“What would it take to stop Anubis’ army, then?” asked Evelyn, her heart plummeting in her chest.

Ardeth appeared pensive. “In theory, Hamilton’s mind leaving his body. Nothing short of that would break the link.”

“Death, then.”

“My friend,” said Ardeth gravely, “you and I both know there are fates worse than death.”

He nodded at her and walked away to get ready, leaving her with a lot on her mind.

Night had fallen during the meeting, bringing a radical change in temperatures. Fires had been lit throughout the camp to light the way, and every square inch of it was buzzing with an anticipation such as Evelyn had seldom felt before. She had been young when the Great War had started, but there was something in the air that reminded her in a very striking way of the end of that particular summer. It was as though everything – what she was about to do, the choices she would have to make – everything could become a possibility to change History still about to unfold. At the same time, she felt that she and her actions were utterly insignificant, something trivial that was about to be ground by History in motion. The great big void that swallowed people, and spat out the names, as her father would say when he was feeling depressed (generally about the lack of knowledge about Ancient Egypt).

_That’s why we do what we do. So History remembers us as people, not names and dates._

_But it’s only people who properly remember people_, had once pointed out a seven-year old Evelyn.

People.

Her father had laughed, closed the book he had been reading and ruffled her hair. Then he had changed the subject.

Evelyn shook her head, allowing some of the tension that had been piling up for the last few hours to ease suddenly as she smiled a little.

_I’m doing this for Rick and Jonathan and Alex,_ she thought, _and this is well enough for me._

_History can have the rest._

* * *

Tom had never set foot in a jungle before, but he had read books about it. Most authors, he suspected, bragged and boasted and were oh-so-slightly untruthful about the reality of the situation. He had figured early on that, if there was really any truth in those pages, there would hardly be any tigers left in India, for one thing.

A few points all authors agreed on seemed to be rooted in truth: the stifling heat, made all the worse by the heavy dampness of the air, the impression that the very oxygen was getting rarer as you trudged on through the leaves… But the thing that came up most often was the ever-present sensation of being watched. Your every move, every word, every breath… Every single small thing you did seemed to be under careful, constant surveillance.

It was very unnerving.

Tom clearly wasn’t the only one to feel that way, although the others’ reactions were all different. Most agents huddled together, clutching their weapons and throwing nervous glances over their shoulders from time to time. Some tried to look relaxed, and failed.

The most interesting to watch was O’Connell. Tom could vaguely recall Jon telling him at one point that the American used to be in the Foreign Legion many years ago; now it was obvious in his stance, his walk, the way his eyes scanned every dark corner before taking a step… He didn’t look all nervous and scared like so many agents did – well, truthfully, kind of like Tom himself felt – but rather wary and aware of his surroundings. There was something deceptively relaxed and calm as well. It seemed to stem directly from instinct, and was probably helped by the fact that, unlike everybody else (except Jon) he had actually already been in that pyramid – and got out alive. Even though the inside of it did not match Jon’s description at all.

The atmosphere was damp, dark and thick. They literally had to hack their way through the enormous leaves and lianas sometimes. The plants were _everywhere_, creeping up the walls, intertwined around the columns, forming a thick, mostly dark green cocoon all around them. The condensation sometimes made droplets of what Tom hoped was water fall from the ceiling, wherever and whatever the ceiling was. It also made people jump out of their skin every time some tepid liquid dripped on their heads or shoulders, which made Tom wish very hard everybody would just take their fingers off the trigger of their guns before something horrible, definitive, and entirely non-supernatural happened.

At times they could make out in the light of the electric torches the sudden glint of gold through the foliage, or the hint of another, bigger room beyond the green wall. They passed it silently, without stopping. There was barely any conversation between the men apart from a few whispers.

They all followed Hamilton, who followed O’Connell. What O’Connell himself was following – his memory or his imagination – was anyone’s guess.

Tom couldn’t help but jump when he heard a mutter from somewhere to his immediate right, “Place has changed a bit, hasn’t it.”

Peering through the occasional holes in darkness created by the electric torches, he could make out Jon’s face, his eyes resolutely staring in front of him at the black hole that was going to be their path in seconds. Even with the lack of light he could see that the usually slightly slanted eyes had gone a bit rounder, and his jaw was clenched a bit tight.

“I guess,” he replied uncertainly, falling into step with him. “First-timer, remember? This looks more like the jungle around the pyramid you told me about. With the – dead soldiers and stuff.”

“Yeah… Well. Did I tell you about other, er… stuff?”

“What? The blokes in red who wanted to grab the Bracelet of Anubis and kill your nephew?”

“N—no… The _other_ other stuff. That could still be around. The – the pygmy mummies.”

“_What?!_”

Tom stared and almost stopped in his tracks. Jon looked dead serious.

“You _are_ joking, right?”

“Ha. I wish. Rotten little bastards.”

“What are they?”

“Guardians of the jungle of some sort. They jump on you with no warning, with blowpipes and the sharpest, nastiest little knives – I even saw one spear a guy.”

“Blimey! What with?”

“A spear, I think.”

“Oh.”

“Right.”

Tom threw a somewhat nervous glance at the forest around them. Suddenly it seemed to rustle with malevolent life and odd noises. He was suddenly aware that his already clammy hands were starting to shake. “So… How d’you kill them?”

Jon jerked his head towards Tom’s gun that he kept in a holster swung over his shoulder.

“Blowing them up with dynamite rather does the trick too,” he added. “Oh, and a shotgun too, according to Rick. The results were just as messy, too.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, Imhotep seemed to make them back away, but I don’t know how much of that was him and how much was the Book of the Dead he was holding at the time. Other than that… well. No idea.”

Tom shook his head with a grim smile he was pretty sure no-one could see.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where that thing landed, now, would you? After all, you were one of the very last people to use – to – to know where it was.”

He saw Jon’s pointed look when his face caught the light of the torch the agent behind him – Becker, a hefty fellow with a bushy beard and a thorough mind – was holding. His friend hadn’t talked in length about his first interview with Hamilton, but he had been clear about some specific things he had voluntarily left out.

Even though Tom wasn’t sure he entirely believed that particular part of the story – the ‘resurrection’ part – he was not going to argue about keeping things from Hamilton. Not after he’d watched and listened to his own boss talk about killing thousands of people as collateral damage and asserting, in horrible calm honesty, that it was for the greater good.

Admittedly, Tom reasoned, having doubts about Evelyn O’Connell coming back from a deadly knife wound while not having problems with accepting a three-thousand-years-dead mummy being raised from the dead was a little bit inconsistent of him. Maybe it was because he had seen Mrs O’Connell, talked to her. The fact that this lively, smiling, essentially _alive_ woman had actually been dead, even for a few minutes, was hard to process.

And this no matter what Jon said. It was a gut thing.

The Southerner shook his head wryly.

“To tell the truth, I completely forgot about it once we got Evy back. I guess it stayed wherever Alex left it and got lost somewhere in that jungle.”

“You didn’t find it on your way out? Because I thought, you know, someone could have picked it up then. After all, it _is_ priceless. One of the most famous books in history – at least Egyptian history.”

Jon actually stopped in his tracks and stared at him with an odd look on his face. Then he shook his head and walked on with a shrug.

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know whether we even would have picked it up on our way out. It got pretty frantic down there, we just wanted to get the hell out. Besides, that book is bad news, my friend.”

“Thought you and your nephew resurrected your sister with it.”

“That’s beside the point. Of course I’m glad Evy didn’t… Bloody hell, ‘glad’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. But that book also brought old Imhotep back. Twice. Granted, the second time we didn’t get the whole locusts, bugs and boils and sores business, but…”

Jon’s voice trailed off, and Tom nodded. His point was a bit unclear, but the Liverpudlian reckoned he got it.

Still… It _was_ a shame.

Lost in his musings, Tom didn’t see that the party had stopped until he almost bumped into Agent Bennett’s back. Being taller than him, he stared over his head at what had brought this sudden stop.

The two agents watching O’Connell (and protecting Hamilton, no doubt) had hacked a fork in the road clear of branches, and everyone was now peering through the darkness at the double path.

“Well?” Tom heard Hamilton mutter impatiently. Maybe the atmosphere was finally getting on his boss’ cold steel nerves, after all. His voice came as a mere whisper. “Which way?”

“I don’t know what you’ve been told about our last happy family trip to this place,” O’Connell deadpanned, “but I wasn’t particularly thinking of lining the path with white pebbles. I didn’t even come in that way.”

“I realise that. But do you have any idea as to the path we should take right now?”

In the crossed rays of the electric torches what little of O’Connell’s face Tom could see looked grim and set.

“Yeah, we should turn around and get the hell out of here before we’re all dead.”

Tom could suddenly sense tension rise higher among the agents around him. The American’s voice had been low, but firm and utterly devoid of any irony or jokey element. He was simply stating a fact.

There was no doubt that he had been aware of voicing some of the silent anxiety that had gripped most of the men since they had set foot in that pyramid. Granted, Tom hadn’t known O’Connell for that long a time, but it was obvious that the guy was anything but dumb. The Englishman could easily assess the cleverness of the seemingly casual remark.

Whispers ran all through the back of the group, and they gradually travelled up to the front, one agent at a time. Even if O’Connell hadn’t actually heard what they were about, he was smart enough to pick up on the atmosphere and encourage the doubts some of the men appeared to be having.

Of course, those doubts didn’t fit Hamilton’s plans at all. Tom caught his boss glancing briefly in Baine’s direction, and the agent pushed back his jacket, leaving the butt of his gun exposed. He heard Jon gulp in the dark near him.

“Unfortunately for you,” Hamilton growled, white teeth gleaming in the erratic light, “this has never been an option. What always has been, however, is the possibility that I might grow bored of your deplorable lack of manners. So either you help us onwards, or I may just ask Agent Baine here to –”

Tom felt someone brush past him and realised with a start that Jon had pushed his way to the front of the group. Jon stopped and just stood there, his hands in his pockets in a would-be casual fashion.

“You’ve got to go right,” he said, his voice unsteady but standing his ground. Both Hamilton and O’Connell turned to him, both faces displaying different shades of surprise.

“How do you know that, pray tell?” Hamilton asked, not bothering to keep the disdain from his tone. It dripped like melting water from an icicle. Jon shrugged, apparently unfazed. Tom, who knew him, knew better.

“I’ve been inside that bloody pyramid too, if you’ve not forgotten. And it so happens we – I – this is the way we came in from. I mean, I recognise this corridor. I reckon that if you cut away the greenery on this wall here there’ll be hieroglyphs that mean ‘This way to the Scorpion King’.”

The boss made a sign, and his two bodyguards raised their machetes and hacked at the vegetation covering the wall in front of them. When they had uncovered a few symbols, Hamilton turned back to Jon with something new on his face. Tom decided he didn’t like at all the way his grey eyes started to gleam.

“Well! We may finally have found a use for you, mister ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’. I can’t deny I’m somewhat surprised.”

“You’d be even more surprised at the things I picked up,” Jon retorted with what he probably thought was a sly grin. Actually, it came off more as a grim sort of wince. Tom had known that one for a very long time. It never fooled him, even back then.

Hamilton eyed him for a couple of seconds, then moved onwards, turning right; everybody followed, O’Connell muttering “Hey, quit that” when Bennett poked him in the small of the back with his gun. To Tom’s surprise, the agent looked almost apologetic as he hastily put the gun away and, thankfully, took his finger off the trigger.

“So,” Tom heard O’Connell whisper to Jon, who looked slightly green – unless it was a trick of the light, or lack thereof. “When’d you get the time to brush up on your Ancient Egyptian reading skills?”

“I was gonna ask the same question,” Tom piped in, highly curious. “Does it really say ‘That way to the –’”

“I didn’t, and yes,” Jon answered in a low, still slightly shaky voice, glancing uneasily at Bennett and Norton who were walking nearby, watching the three of them. “But I didn’t translate that. Alex did – that time. The three of us walked past it, on our way to… You know.”

“Yeah,” O’Connell said, his low baritone a bit rough round the edges.

“The ‘three’ of – _oh_. Right.” Tom cleared his throat and asked, a tiny bit awkwardly, “Well, is there anything you remember that might come in handy? Can you still read hieroglyphs?”

“Not as well as I used to,” Jon replied with a shrug. Then he added fervently, “But I’ll _never_ forget that bloody Ahmenophus stork thing now. I’m likely to remember that one as long as I live.”

“Why? What does it mean?”

Jon stood still for a second, then he stared at O’Connell and Tom, who stared back, puzzled. Then something passed into his eyes, and his face relaxed.

“Do you know,” he said, with a shake of his head and a small but genuine smile this time, “I really haven’t got a clue.”

A low chuckle escaped O’Connell, and Tom let out something halfway between a sigh and a small, shaky laugh. There was something that he was missing here, clearly, but it didn’t matter right now. Not really. Not when a tiny fraction of the cold, gripping apprehension that had been clutching at his gut ever since they entered the pyramid had been lifted, even for a second. He tugged at the straps of his rucksack and fell into step with the two brothers-in-law just as O’Connell asked, his voice almost normal, “You don’t give a damn about the meaning of that symbol really, right?

“How did you know?”

* * *

“Look, lady, I’m not so sure about this.”

“And you choose this precise moment to inform me?”

Not letting go of Dee’s helm, Izzy turned his head towards Mrs O’Connell, a bit puzzled at the quiet laugh behind the seemingly biting remark. He had been expecting irony, or worse, sarcasm. But there was the hint of a smile on her lips.

“So… Remind me again. We are goin’ under to – to do what, exactly? Apart from probably gettin’ shot, I mean.”

She threw him a pointed look, but didn’t pick on the remark. Instead, she put down the whetstone and the short sword that the Medjai chief guy had given her and explained with a slow, deliberate voice.

“We are going down into the pyramid to stop a man named Charles Hamilton from summoning the Army of Anubis, because if he is successful in that, he will destroy the world.”

“Right. Okay. I still don’t get it.”

He caught her disbelieving stare for a second, then her face kind of slackened a little bit and she rolled her eyes. “Honestly, this is not so hard to process, you just –”

“No, no – I get the ‘The Earth is doomed and someone’s got to save the world’ part. But I still don’t understand why _we_ gotta do the saving. I mean, it’s not like it’s your fault or something, right?”

She didn’t answer that right away and her gaze drifted off a little, and he wondered whether he’d blurted out exactly the wrong thing. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“It isn’t, right?”

Well, he’d heard stories. People talked, on long journeys. Most customers found the silence of the open desert sky so daunting and empty they quickly got the urge to fill it with words. And sometimes Izzy listened. If half the stories about Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell were true, the woman had – granted, with some help – had a hand in raising each and every single mummy buried in Egypt.

This was probably a cartload of bull, but after the nasty business with the wall of water and the desert swallowing that pyramid two years ago, Izzy felt more inclined to give some of those stories far more credit than he used to.

Mrs O’Connell suddenly looked back at him and stated, rather intently, “_No_. I mean no, it’s not,” she corrected, more gently. “It’s just that we’re the only people who stand any chance of success. And we need to do it quickly, because it all comes down to the new moon setting. At dawn _tomorrow_.”

Izzy did not ask why they ‘stood the only chance of success’, because her earnestness and seriousness was so much more disturbing than O’Connell’s laid-back ‘mummies, pygmies, really big bugs’ attitude. It meant that it was real, and that it was just the start. Worse, he was actually expected to take a part in the ‘saving the world’ party.

And he’d always thought himself a sidelines kind of guy, too. Ever since O’Connell had buggered off to the French Foreign Legion, that is. The odds of getting shot in the arse were much lower if you stood on the sidelines.

“Yeah, well,” he muttered, going back to scrutinising the landscape, “no wonder you people never stop to look at the scenery.”

Mrs O’Connell spared a brief, tense smile and returned to her whetstone and her sword. In the silence that followed, a tiny sound reached Izzy’s ears. It would have gone completely unnoticed in the middle of the conversation between him and his passenger, but as it was, he could not ignore it. Blocking the helm with the autopilot – a simple jamming device – he tip-toed towards the sound as silently as he could, followed by Mrs O’Connell’s curious gaze.

He did have a hunch about what, or who, could have made this sound. He was just wildly hoping to be wrong.

Sure enough, when he plunged his hand into one of the empty crates usually filled with supplies, his fingers caught something wriggly, warm, and emitting remarkably colourful language as he hauled it out into the night air.

Young Master Alex O’Connell’s blue eyes, looking unnervingly like his father’s, shot him a full glare that his blond fringe quite failed to soften.

Izzy let go of him before the collar of the jacket he was holding on to ripped for good. In a flash, the boy went from red-faced anger and shame at having been caught to dutifully wincing when he saw his mother advance on him. She did look quite formidable, much more so than a petite, slim librarian had any right to be.

“Oh, brother,” Alex mumbled, his cheeks rapidly losing colour. In spite of his annoyance at finding a stowaway – not to mention the identity and especially pedigree of said stowaway – Izzy couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid.

“Mum, wait – I can explain everything.”

_This should be _really_ interesting, then._

* * *

Jonathan was starting to hate pyramids with a passion.

His reasons for doing so seemed perfectly sound to him, too. For starters, pyramids were the place you buried dead people. Long-dead powerful people. People who had been dead for millennia, and who, when they had been alive, had made arrangements for a peaceful, _undisturbed_ afterlife.

As the Pharaohs were for the most part fantabulously rich, they had no problem getting the best architects to design the most perfectly lethal booby traps to ward off intruders. Knowing this early on had somewhat quelled his enthusiasm for archaeological venture.

Not that he really agreed with angry people who claimed that digging out ancient artefacts and putting them on display for the world to see was grave-robbing and sacrilege, but… Pyramids _were_ graves, after all. And Jonathan had never really been too fond of cemeteries in the first place.

But what he was now loathing with all his heart, what really riled him to no end were _bloody pyramids filled with bloody jungle swarming with bloody creepy little pygmy mummies!_

Keeping his mouth shut tightly against the terror-induced nausea, he walked with his eyes and ears wide open, peering and listening intently for any sign of the eerie hush that had suddenly fallen just before the nasty little buggers had attacked two years ago. It had seemed, then, that the only sound for a couple of miles around had been his own blood thumping in his eardrums and Evy’s deep breathing.

It had been shockingly easy to stand on that ridge with Evy, telling himself over and over that if they didn’t shoot these men in red, Alex and Rick and Ardeth didn’t stand a chance down there. The old reflexes had come back as though they never left. Jonathan had slowed his breathing, pushed down his nausea, done his best to ignore his pounding heart, and got to work. The enemy’s uniforms were red instead of grey, and thankfully Hafez’s men were too busy trying to survive the jungle to shoot at _them_; but for those two differences, he might have been back in a trench, twenty years ago. Aim, shoot, reload; repeat _ad nauseam_.

It had been a sickening, exhausting business – not to mention the nightmares after that, both those where he missed and those where he hit the target – but at least he had not been part of the big action then.

This time, he’d been shoved unwilling in the middle of the fray, without any other purpose than just because he happened to be there, surrounded – with two noteworthy exceptions – by people who would kill him if he tried to escape, just as he’d killed those men two years and two decades ago.

Trying to escape would be a bloody stupid thing to do anyway, considering the lurking pygmy mummies that vied for everyone’s blood, his and the agents’.

Equal shares of danger for all. Hurray for equality.

Except it wasn’t really equality, now, was it? He and Rick were now in the exact same position Hafez’s nutters had been at the jungle of Ahm Shere, hunted down and potentially shot at from two different parties at once. Not that he felt sorry for the blighters (not after they kidnapped Alex and threatened to cut his arm off to get the Bracelet), but suddenly finding himself in the same situation actually had something laughable about it.

_Sometimes I hate irony._

He kept chewing on his grim thoughts as he walked, and since Hamilton wanted to keep an eye on him after his little remark earlier about the path to the Scorpion King, the company was not helping any. The only difference it made was that instead of having complete and utter darkness engulf everything behind him with each step that he made, he had complete and utter darkness ripping open before him, as though reluctantly.

It came as great relief when Rick quickened his own step and muttered right behind him, making him jump a little, “Recognise the place?”

Jonathan peered at the little he could see of the space around them with narrowed eyes.

“Well… Can’t really say I do, old boy. Must’ve hurried past and not stopped to enjoy the view. Why?”

“Because I think we’re getting close. See that gold… ish thing on your left?”

“That pointy thing that sticks out from behind the big ferns?” They probably were anything but ferns, but Jonathan couldn’t for the life of him tell what kind of greenery the big dark leaves were supposed to be. Risking a glance behind him after making sure Hamilton wasn’t looking, he saw Rick staring at it.

“Yeah… I guess. Well, that’s where that nutcase Hafez stuck the bracelet. There’s a statue somewhere that sucked his hand right off.”

Jonathan winced. “Guess I won’t be sticking my hand anywhere around there, then.” For some reason, Rick’s four-hundred-tooth grin took on a sinister gleam in the torches’ lights.

“Might be a good idea.”

His round blue eyes hardened a great deal the second after that, and Jonathan looked around to see what had brought this sudden change. He was met with Agent Baine’s equally cold and steely glare, and for a moment there he felt like having stepped into a less muddy no man’s land.

After a few seconds of silent glowering, Jonathan cleared his throat and asked awkwardly, in the most normal voice he could muster in the circumstances, “Say, how come everybody got a bag and we didn’t? Planning to do some archaeologing on the side, are you?”

Baine’s cold eyes shifted their aim from Rick to him, and Jonathan had a fleeting but haunting sensation of being a butterfly pinned in one of those display boxes entomologists showed them off in. He gulped nervously.

Incidentally noticing that he seemed to be doing that a lot these days.

Baine’s expression turned into one of grim amusement as he gestured at his own rucksack.

“Well, our thinking was, you probably won’t make it out of this place alive, so what would be the use of giving you a bag? It’s all first-aid kits and ammunition and other stuff you won’t need anyway.”

Jonathan knew he ought to have been more afraid of Baine’s answer; it sounded more like a promise than like a remote possibility. But he just couldn’t push the pygmy mummies out of his mind. His memories of them, though blurred (mostly with running like mad) and, truthfully, rather brief, were so much scarier than the seemingly more direct threat of Baine and his bunch.

He made a mental note to ask Tom what was in _his_ rucksack. It hadn’t looked like there had been much in the way of equipment.

As for Rick, threats of all kinds must have got so old by now that he just raised an eyebrow at the bloke, who-rang-your-bell style. Then his toothy grin came back and he walked past the agent with a shrug.

“I wouldn’t think of depriving you of your first-aid kit, you probably _will_ need it more than us,” he drawled, throwing a derisive look over his shoulder at Baine. “By the way, how’s your eye?”

Baine stiffened and automatically raised a hand to his two-days-old bruise. The angry red and purple was beginning to fade into yellow and green at the edges. It was not without a certain amount of satisfaction that Jonathan remembered having made this particular impression to the agent’s face. The small victory over him in the scuffle two days ago was worth any amount of glaring he’d been subjected to since Monday.

And there _had_ been a certain amount.

A sharp intake of breath made him turn his attention back to the front of the group, a few feet away. Hamilton and his two bodyguards had stopped on the first step of an enormous stairway and were pointing their torches down in the room they’d just entered.

This chamber was _big_. Even with the greenery that was invading everything, gripping the columns, covering the statues and crawling up the walls, you could feel the weight of thousands of years coming down on you like the Egyptian sun on your head at the height of the afternoon.

It wasn’t just about the weight of the years, too. The entire room gave off an impression of malevolent watchfulness. It might have been just another demonstration of the theory that stated that the bigger the room was, the less you felt like talking, but there was something creepy in the air that you couldn’t help but taste, something damp, heavy and… dark. Brownish, maybe. Something that didn’t bode well at all, anyway.

As he walked carefully down the slippery steps, Jonathan noticed that his knees were having a heated debate about whether to start wobbling or not. He could hardly blame them, having just recognised the place as the chamber where he’d seen Anck-su-namun peering into a corridor, as though waiting, before she turned those cold black eyes on him and stared him up and down. As though he was something small, useless, and utterly out of place in the general order of things. When he had cleared his throat and raised his fists – feeling remarkably foolish in the process – the look in her eyes had changed, and in there he could now read, “Oh, does it want to play? Does it do tricks?”

Never, in his entire life, had he felt so much like a mouse stuck in a room with a cat in a playful mood. The woman had just murdered Evy, driven a knife into her stomach, up close and personal, and _smiled_. Seeing her had made cold sweat run down his neck and his back, and this was _before_ she had toyed with him like a predator with its food. Jonathan was fully aware he didn’t exactly have a lot going for him in terms of chest-beating, swinging-from-lianas manliness, but he still did have his pride, and being thrown and beaten around by someone who must weigh half as much as he did still stung. Super badass concubine fighter from Ancient Egypt – as Alex had once put it – or not.

The whole group stopped at the foot of the stairway, circling something on the floor, and Jonathan tried to peek through the mass of dark suits to get a look. When he finally sneaked a glance, he spotted Hamilton being helped into a set of large robes with a lot of gold stuff on them that Jonathan judged too gaudy to not be fake. Especially when it looked so much like a fancy bathrobe minus the belt.

“Gentlemen,” Hamilton said, shaking the long sleeves to make the hem fall on his wrists, “this is the end of our journey. Here lies –” here he paused for effect, gesturing at the ground with the cloth of his sleeves giving an appropriate wave, “the Seal of Anubis.”

The few agents who were standing too close to it took a hasty step back.

There was not a single root or leaf on that seal. The big scorpion figure was clearly visible, the different shades of gold gleaming where the light of a torch touched them. The total absence of dark green was unsettling. It also made it crystal-clear that this was what they had come for. The ominous, heavy feeling hanging in the room seemed to emanate from this very point.

Anyone could sense that this seal meant _business_.

And Hamilton, without any other form of ceremony, cool as anything, came to stand right on top of it.

Instinctively Jonathan tried to take a step back, but froze at the sudden touch of cold metal against his neck. From the rustle behind him, it appeared that he was not the only one with survival instincts. There was a collective intake of breath and a fifty man gasp –

And nothing happened.

The collective breath was released and the tension in the atmosphere seemed to dwindle. All things considered, the whole business felt anti-climatic, even something of a let-down.

But Jonathan had learned not to trust seemingly all-clear situations. He still had the soot behind the ears to prove it.

Most agents seemed to welcome the lull, and they all gave a start when Hamilton turned a strangely meaningful look at Baine and said, “You’re in command now, ag—”

He never finished the word. Under his feet the seal sent a gradual shudder that shook the walls and eventually the entire pyramid. Golden light so bright those too close to it had to shield their eyes seeped – not unlike some sort of thick sticky syrup – from the gold parts of the seal and _into_ Hamilton, who had gone stock-still, his eyes lost into the distance and his mouth slightly open.

He looked like any unfortunate bloke who had just walked rather violently into a lamppost, except for the very disturbing detail of thick yellow light pouring straight ahead from his eyes, his mouth and his nostrils. Then his feet left the ground.

It felt like watching a string puppet show done by someone who had only heard the theory of it. Hamilton’s dark grey shoes floated aimlessly four or five inches off the ground, his head lolled at a weird angle on his neck, one shoulder was slumped when the other one remained rigid…

“Here we go again,” Jonathan heard Rick mutter. The words fell in a stunned, shocked silence. Only Baine seemed to know exactly what was going on, and seemed very pleased by the turn of events so far.

Hamilton’s body – obviously his mind was busy somewhere else, possibly a few planets away – began to drift off towards the passageway to another chamber, his feet still dangling a little off the floor. The leaves and lianas shuffled aside gently, as though self-consciously, where he went.

A small crowd of agents followed Baine, who kept a leisure pace behind Hamilton, looking calm and poised and as gleeful as if Christmas had come early. Not so Jonathan’ and Rick’s escorts, who hung their heads low and shuffled silently, occasionally treading on each other’s feet. Once in a while they would glance grimly at the fantastic sight of their boss being dragged on as though by some sort of invisible string.

_The supernatural does take some getting used to, gentlemen_, Jonathan thought with an inner sarcastic grin which slipped abruptly when he bumped into a taller agent’s back. The agent gave a start and whirled around, his hand – and gun – jerking nervously. Jonathan took a hurried step back, startled, only to knock another agent to a halt. His gun was out in a flash, too.

“Now, now, gents, no need to resort to extremes,” Jonathan stammered, instinctively raising his hands. As the two men let out a trembling breath he made a show of straightening the creases in his jacket and added in a slightly steadier tone, “You know, you’d really better put those guns of yours away before one of you does something I’ll regret very much.”

“What?” the taller agent barked while the other shook his head and put his gun back into his holster. “Shoot one of our own?”

“No, I meant me.”

The agent sniggered, but Jonathan did notice with great relief that he kept his finger off the trigger now.

When he tried to peek around the dark suits to get a sense of why they had all stopped, he was unceremoniously shoved in front, where Rick already was, standing beside Tom with his blue eyes fixed on something ahead of him. Hamilton’s body had drifted to a halt.

His eyes still wide open and his mouth agape, his head still rolling on his neck like a ragdoll’s, he went near the wall as though attracted by a giant magnet like in the cartoons from the moving pictures Alex loved. He stayed there, as though tied to a post, under a heavily-decorated gong of massive proportions that hung from the wall, too high for anyone normal to bang.

A sort of spasm ran through his whole body – even his fingertips jerked. Then he went completely still.

A shadow swept over the large chamber, and it felt hot and cold at the same time, and empty. Empty_ing_, rather. Jonathan had a mad urge to dig his fingernails into his palms just to be able to _feel_ something. The last time he had felt anything like it, he had thought the reason was the body of his dead sister lying in his arms. To say it had been unsettling would stretch the limits of even the most open-minded judge on English understatement.

Like last time, it lasted only a few seconds before everything went back to normal in a flash, leaving a trail of lit flambeaus and oil lamps, their light greenish and faintly sinister behind the trees, the lianas, and the giant ferns.

Except the Army of Anubis had just been raised again.

Jonathan let out a raspy breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. It fought briefly with what felt like his heart hammering inside his throat to get out.

Then Baine turned to him and Rick a look that made something churn in the region of his stomach. It wasn’t the passing glare or occasional sneer Jonathan had got used to in the past few days. It was a straight, direct stare. The kind that made you wish you were being ignored.

“Kill them.”

_Oh, bollocks._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Me in 2008**: “_The Medjai, while being mostly a warrior people, were a society where the position of man and woman was not about superiority or inferiority. Rather, they went through life having different tasks (the men were taught in the arts of war, the women generally took care of the breeding of camels and whatever farming there was to do) but came together when it came to raising children and making important decisions for the future of the tribe._” (the fic pre-rewrites.)  
**Me in 2019**: to hell with gender roles, let’s say the Medjai came too close to extinction at several points in three millennia to confine men to war and women to farming. We didn’t see women Medjai in battle in TMR but they were there.
> 
> I feel compelled to point out that Evy having “a hand in raising each and every single mummy buried in Egypt” amounts to a grand total of one, two if you count Anck-su-namun. In Evy’s defence, she was in no way responsible for the second time Imhotep was raised from the dead. (She just took the Bracelet of Anubis from its chest and Alex activated the Bracelet by putting it on.)
> 
> The nod to giant magnets and Looney Tunes cartoons is cheating a little, because while Porky Pig cartoons were already pretty popular in 1937, Daffy Duck was only created that same year, and Bugs Bunny a year later.
> 
> Well, we’re stopping here for a couple of months until my beta reader isn’t so busy with real life. But there _will_ be a chapter 17 (and so on and so forth until the end). See you next February/March!


	17. Fight or Flight

Evelyn had rarely been so angry at her son. Alex did have a mischievous streak – often encouraged, to his mother’s dismay, by a father who tended to turn a blind eye to what he judged to be mild shenanigans and an uncle who sometimes still seemed half a child himself – but he hardly ever did anything that warranted more than a stern talking-to.

This time, Evelyn’s anger was proportional to her sudden fear for her child, which took priority over everything else. Alex visibly struggled to explain his actions.

“But Mum, I’ve been in the pyramid too! I know which way to go, I can help Dad and Uncle Jon while you find the bad guy and stop him!”

“You will do no such thing! This isn’t one of your adventure books, Alex – we know next to nothing about the men inside the pyramid, however I don’t think they’re going to draw the line at harming you. Not to mention the Army of Anubis. _They_’re set to destroy everyone and everything in their path, including children.”

Evelyn didn’t shout. She was too furious for that. Besides, she usually didn’t need to, and considering the way Izzy was slinking away, looking supremely uncomfortable, this was one of those times.

Unfortunately, Alex had inherited both his parents’ brands of stubbornness, and knew how to dig in his heels when he felt it necessary.

“I know that, Mum. But Lock-Nah and the others didn’t really cut me any slack for being a kid. If it hadn’t been for Dad, he would have killed me in that jungle, and I think he would have really liked it.”

Through her anger, Evelyn felt a stab of retroactive terror and fury at the men who had come so close to depriving her of her only child. Then she forced her mind back to the present and grabbed Alex by the shoulders, resisting the urge to hold him as tightly as she could.

“That’s just it, Alex. You don’t have to place yourself in danger now. You can stay at the camp, with the other children, _and_,” she added pointedly as Alex opened his mouth to protest, “I can go into that pyramid knowing that you’re safer than if you’d come with me. Have you any idea how worried I’d be for you if you went with me? Or what your father would say if something happened to you while you were down there?”

The argument was a bit of a low blow, but Evelyn was past pulling any punches, as Rick said. Of course Alex could be mature beyond his years. Of course he had endured things no ten-year-old should with remarkable fortitude. Of course – and this broke her heart – he was not unfamiliar with the worst human beings could inflict on fellow men, and even children. But this time he could stay behind, and, if she had anything to say about it, _would_ stay behind.

Izzy’s hesitant voice was loud in the sudden silence.

“Actually. Um. I don’t think we can. Go back to camp, I mean.”

Evelyn’s eyes swivelled from Alex to him, and he pointed at something in the distance.

“Well, we could, but if _that_ means what I think it means, we need to land and get into that pyramid right now.”

Mother and son ran to bend over the rail, disagreement temporarily forgotten.

From ground level came a dot of light that made Evelyn’s eyes water when they met it. After squinting a little in the near darkness, she saw tents lit up by campfires. In the middle, a figure knelt on the ground next to a fire, holding a mirror towards the dirigible.

The signal. Maher and his men had overpowered Hamilton’s men, commando-style, and were telling her it was time to land.

Evelyn closed her eyes and took a shaking breath. They really didn’t have time to go back.

“Alex,” she said, her voice very, very low, “when we get home, you and I are going to have Words.”

Alex swallowed and wisely kept his mouth shut. Visibly his mother’s tone had successfully impressed upon him just How Serious the situation was. _Good_.

Hamilton’s camp should probably have been bustling, but it was eerily still and silent when Izzy landed Dee next to the exposed top of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere. The men, she found, were huddling together, sitting down in the sand, throwing nervous glances at their captors. Maher’s team was small, but effective.

While Izzy dragged the ramp out of the bowels of the dirigible, Evelyn turned to Alex and knelt down to his eyeline.

“Alex, please promise me you’ll stay here. Please, swear on my life, on your father’s, that you’re going to stay on the dirigible and not wander off.”

Alex still looked conflicted, but eventually nodded solemnly.

“I swear, Mum. I won’t set a foot outside of Dee until you’ve brought back Dad and Uncle Jon.”

His voice rang with absolute certainty, as though Rick and Jonathan were merely busy elsewhere, to be called back to the house for dinner. Not for the first time, her son’s unshakeable faith in her was humbling, and not a little daunting considering what lay ahead. Evelyn wrapped him in her arms and held him close, laying her head against his, her nose in his fine hair. She was almost surprised when Alex hugged her back fiercely, silently, his small hands gripping the back of her blouse so tightly the fabric strained.

She was _not_ surprised, however, when she heard a snuffle and a muffled, “Promise me you won’t die again, Mum.”

Evelyn ran a hand through Alex’s hair; she pulled away to lay a kiss on his crown and rested her forehead against his for a few seconds, until he could give a wobbly smile and pretend he hadn’t noticed she hadn’t promised anything.

As she followed Izzy down the ramp, she looked back only once. Her little boy stood at the rail, firelight behind him, his eyes very bright.

Maher, a tall, willowy man who rarely talked, gave her a gentle smile when he saw her before he went back to watching the prisoners. His lieutenant, Atifa, met her in the centre of the camp, at the foot of the pyramid – or rather, the dozen feet that had been unearthed. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, a little older than Evelyn, who had met her a few years ago on one of her visits to Ardeth and his family.

“Are you sure you don’t want anyone else coming with you?” she asked Evelyn in a low voice.

Evelyn shook her head. “Thank you, but no. You’re needed here; I’m needed down there.” She pursed her lips and breathed deeply through her nose. Her mission – taking down Hamilton by any means necessary – was clear, and she intended to see it through, but she couldn’t help but shudder, like she’d shuddered two years ago, standing nearly in the same spot. She had lost count of the men she’d had to kill in that jungle to protect her son, her husband, and her friend. This, almost more than the memory of the smell of gunpowder and almost throwing up once she’d lowered her rifle, kept her awake at night. And she let it. Killing people should never be easy, she reasoned. The dead, even nameless, had their way of weighing on the souls of the living, their murderers’ in particular.

Come to think of it, stripping Imhotep of his name in the hope of his never reaching the afterlife had been an exercise in futility. Engraving ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’ on his sarcophagus hadn’t taken away his sense of self any more than it had stopped _her_ from bringing him back to life.

Atifa didn’t argue the point. She held out her hand, and instead of clasping Evelyn’s, laid it on her arm, just below the shoulder.

The warmth of this simple contact nearly undid her resolve before it strengthened it. Apart from Alex, Evelyn realised, she hadn’t felt the touch of another human being in five days. She allowed herself one second of fierce longing for Rick’s arms around her, or Jonathan’s hand in the crook of her elbow, before smiling at Atifa and returning the gesture.

“Be careful,” said Atifa in a low voice.

“You too,” said Evelyn firmly.

And she entered the pyramid, feeling rather than hearing Izzy’s presence at her back. Even the weapons he had brought didn’t make any sound as he walked.

Evelyn herself held a pistol in her right hand and a sword in her left. The part of her that was Nefertiri scoffed at the imbalance and pointed out that a khopesh in each hand would have been better.

If someone asked her one day how one went about being a reincarnated princess from Ancient Egypt and handling both sets of memories and reflexes, Evelyn would be hard pressed to answer. There were facts she knew that she never learned, movements that came to her instinctively in spite of herself… Nefertiri had died a young woman, but Evelyn had a decade on her, plus a child. It had taken her hours and hours of fighting practice before she could truly find a balance between the warrior and the archaeologist.

Right now, for instance, Nefertiri focused on being as stealthy and silent as possible, while Evelyn’s experience in entering tombs kept her eyes and ears open for anything unusual. Which, admittedly, amounted to everything in a pyramid that appeared to hold a veritable jungle in its entrails.

“Did you know about this?” muttered Izzy, startling her. “Was the place already like that when I picked you up last time?”

“No,” she whispered. “Absolutely not. The oasis must have got sucked into the pyramid when the Scorpion King died.”

A shudder ran through her body. If the Oasis of Ahm Shere was now inside the pyramid… did that mean everything else was, as well?

The jungle around her was hardly silent. Some wildlife must have made it home again, from what she could hear, and somewhere a small stream was babbling merrily and dripping over a wall. Against all odds, there was even a slight breeze on her face. So far, there was no sign of the unearthly silence that had preceded the arrival of the pygmy mummies.

“Right, right. The Scorpion King. Was that the one your boy’s gold bracelet led to, the one who was supposed to rise from the dead and destroy the world?”

Evelyn turned sharply towards Izzy.

“It was, actually, outlandish as it may sound. That bracelet almost killed my son, and the Scorpion King almost killed my husband.”

_And a three thousand years old resurrected concubine killed_ me.

Izzy held out one hand.

“Look, couple of years ago I would’ve said this was nuts, but then a wall of water with a face on it tried to drown us and then the desert bloody _ate_ an oasis and an entire pyramid. I’m willing to go on faith. Just… Lemme adjust a little bit.”

“I know the feeling. But you’re going to have to adjust quickly. We—”

The floor shook, the walls trembled. She and Izzy reached for each other at the same time for balance, and she felt his hand grip her wrist and send a shudder through her arm.

“Wha—”

The world went black, and for a second Evelyn felt a wild, irrational fear that she’d just been killed again. The sensation was nothing like she’d ever felt before. The shadow drove itself into the heart of her, like cold fire or burning ice, leaving her with a gaping void. Suddenly she was grateful to feel the grip of Izzy’s hand. It was the only sensation that registered at all.

The shadow left as quickly as it had come. In its wake was a faint, greenish light, as though the braziers and torches she remembered were there had been lit again, somewhere beyond the foliage.

“What _was_ that!?” gasped Izzy, letting go of her wrist.

Evelyn peered into the half-lit passageway to the trail they were following, then back to the way they had come from, her heart pounding in her chest fit to burst.

“I think… I think that was the Army of Anubis.”

Her next words turned to ash in her mouth.

“We’re too late.”

* * *

Tomorrow often was a good day to die, Ardeth reflected. Today never was.

Tomorrow was convenient. It allowed room for steely composure and swagger, admiring stares on the part of the less lucky ones who would not be riding out to war, and maybe just a few seconds of feeling sorry for oneself.

Not so with “today”. Today was the moment death stared you in the face and you hoped, wished and prayed that it would look away, just for you, just for one minute. It was the moment when you tried so very hard, as your enemy stormed upon you, to maintain a little bit of dignity and not let your body betray you with violently shaking legs or a loosening bladder.

A good warrior looked on combat as being ‘today’, because he knew that the true face of war was the face of your comrade-in-arms and best friend staring at you from the ground with dead eyes, sand mixing with blood in your own wounds and staring at whatever was pouring out of your gut in nauseating terror.

For all his years as a chieftain and a commander of the Medjai, and his experience in battle, Ardeth knew he would never be quite used to war.

He fervently hoped so, anyway.

Spurring his horse to reach the front of the first line, he caught a grim glance from Aziz, chieftain of the Fifth Tribe – a tall, thin man, whose deep-set eyes looked dourer than ever.

His expression did not surprise Ardeth. Aziz was a strategist first, and a warrior second. Although nobody – not even him – had been able to come up with a completely satisfying solution, he had been one of the strongest voices against facing the Army of Anubis a second time with nothing more than a wild hope that things would somehow turn out all right in the pyramid.

But try as he might, he couldn’t think of a better strategy. Having known the Chieftain of the Fifth Tribe for years, Ardeth had a very clear idea of just how much this angered him. In all likelihood, Aziz was now close to seething, and the only thing that stopped him from speaking his mind to his Commander was the men and women standing around them, and, possibly, his own lack of a better plan of action.

But he waited, same as the others, careful not to let his mask of cool self-control slip. Ardeth knew that he felt just the same fraction of mind-boggling terror – voiced by the same instinct of self-preservation that whispered that right here and now was the last place to be.

Once more, though, he silenced it as he surveyed his people.

Most of them had already been there two years ago. He could see the weariness and horror in their eyes that came from knowing exactly what they would face. Some of the younger warriors, those who had never seen a Jackal of Anubis, were throwing worried glances here and there, breathing shallow and fast, but it did not come close to the terror of facing your nightmares for the second time in two years.

The wind changed. Ardeth’s breath caught in his throat.

The stars above were still visible, but their light was cold, as though dimmed. The air suddenly cooled.

In front of them, between them and the pyramid in the distance, dark sand began to move.

Ardeth’s hands tightened around the hilt of his scimitar.

They were coming.

* * *

“Kill them.”

“Wait – stop! What!?”

Damn, the guy was fast. In the half-second it had taken Rick to instinctively reach for the gun he _knew_ wasn’t at his side, Ferguson had leaped in front of him and Jonathan, facing his colleagues with a wild-eyed fear in his eyes and his hands held placatingly in front of him.

To their credit, a few agents lowered their guns immediately.

“Robertson, Wyndham, Norton, come on – what does Baine think you are, cold-blooded murderers?” Ferguson’s voice was a little higher than usual, and the sudden edge in it seemed to shake several agents into taking their fingers off the triggers of their guns. “Our job is to protect important and ancient artefacts, not bloody kill people!”

“Thank you for that eloquent address, Ferguson,” said Baine coldly, as though this was just a hitch in the plan, “but I think we’ll do without interruptions now. Gentlemen, proceed.”

From the corner of his eye, Rick glanced at Jonathan, who seemed to be surreptitiously looking for a quick way out. _Good. Here’s hoping he’s spotted the little passageway between the two trees and the statue._

Apparently Ferguson hadn’t played his last card.

“Stop – think! _Why_?”

A burly giant of an agent lowered his gun entirely and asked, frowning, “What d’you mean, ‘why’? It’s a direct order, innit?”

“A direct – oh, for God’s sake –” Ferguson threw up his hands. “What if he ordered you to shoot yourself in the head, you monumental idiot, would you do it?”

“Here, he’s got a point,” a younger agent piped up. “Do we really have to kill them? I mean, this isn’t what I signed up for in the first place.”

“Shut up and do the job at hand, McLean,” came the low, scratchy voice of a much older agent, whose gun was still trained steadily at Rick and Jonathan. “It’s not your place to ask.”

Rick took a minuscule step back. If he could just bump into one of them and help himself to a gun in the process, they might have a chance to get out of this mess alive. What they would do outside against the Army of Anubis was another matter entirely, but right now, the priority was getting the hell away from Baine.

Rick O’Connell always prided himself on his sense of priorities.

The man himself stood silent in the background as voices rose in argument, slowly but definitely reaching inside his jacket for his own gun. Rick took a short moment to appraise the look in Baine’s eyes. The guy was deadly serious.

Meanwhile, even as they clutched their guns, some of the other agents still exchanged uncertain glances at the idea of shooting two fellow human beings in cold blood. Maybe there was something to work with here.

In the blink of an eye, Rick grabbed Ferguson from behind, wrenched his revolver from his holster and shoved the muzzle between his shoulder blades.

Ferguson stiffened and let out a strangled sound. Rick tried not to wince and whispered, “Sorry, buddy. Just look scared.”

“Not bloody hard, is it!” Ferguson hissed through clenched teeth, as Jonathan inched closer, his face even whiter than it had been five minutes ago.

“Rick, what the hell are you doing?” he whispered angrily. Rick gave an imperceptible shrug.

“Making a gambit. You play poker, you oughta know how it works.” Then he stared at Baine, hard, trying to make him understand just how deadly serious _he_ was, too.

“You make a move, I kill the guy,” he said as levelly as he could, his heart hammering in his chest. He had played poker before, occasionally with a bad hand, but this was easily the worst hand he’d ever had. “Your call.”

_Okay, that got ‘em thinking_. They would surely think twice about murdering a fellow agent, someone they’d known for some time, maybe some years. _Talk as little as possible, keep your eyes on theirs, make a slow retreat…_

“Is it, really, Mister O’Connell?” Baine actually grinned, clearly enjoying the situation. “What makes you think I won’t just shoot him as well? Do you really believe, in that thick American head of yours, that I would let the life of _one_ agent compromise the mission?”

_Shit._

Baine raised his gun.

Rick fell back on pure survival instinct and decades-old training. The second before Baine’s finger squeezed the trigger, he dropped to the ground, pulling Ferguson with him. The jungle became a dark green blur as he leaped to his feet and bolted to the door, only risking the shortest glance behind him to check that Jonathan did the same, still keeping a tight hold on Ferguson’s collar with his left hand and on his gun in his right. Leaves, branches, and the occasional chip of stone exploded around them as agent after agent decided to follow the leader after all and shoot.

All things considered, it was a sheer miracle that the three of them were still intact when they finally stopped after what felt like hours of running straight in front of them. Rick made sure of that once he had recovered enough to review his troops.

Jonathan was leaning against the wall for support, ashen-faced and gasping – from retroactive fright, Rick guessed, as well as the actual run – but Ferguson looked worse. His face was an even more alarming shade than his old friend’s, his breaths coming in gasps, gulping and uneven.

The only sound that didn’t come in muffled by the layers of green around them was the same faint gurgle that they’d noticed as they entered the pyramid.

With a bit of luck, they could find the source and follow it upstream back to the entrance at the top.

“All – all right, there, Tom?” Rick heard Jonathan ask uncertainly. When he looked back, Ferguson’s glare was very bright in the half-gloom of the low, small corridor.

“Do I bloody _look_ all right, Jon?” he panted, a bit of colour creeping back into his cheeks. “Those – what a bunch of stupid, mindless – I don’t even – God, I can’t _believe_ that son of a bitch!” he finally exploded with on his face an expression even Rick couldn’t deny was a little bit scary. “When I get me ‘ands on him he’ll be bleedin’ sorry he was born!”

Nobody asked him who ‘he’ was – there was no need.

Thankfully, possibly because of the unsettling hush around them or the stifling damp heat, Ferguson’s fury boiled down to a steady simmer quickly enough, although his dark glower spoke volumes about the fate he reserved for Baine if he was still alive when they got out of there. Rick caught himself thinking it might be kinder for the guy to never see the light of day again.

As for the other agents…

“Orders, they said,” Ferguson muttered as they tiptoed their way up, watching every shadow like hawks. It was almost impossible to see the floor under all the greenery, so they tread very carefully. “Orders. _Cretins_. That lot wouldn’t recognise common sense if it danced naked in front of them and hit them on the head with a big bloody sign…”

He hadn’t even asked for his gun back. Maybe it was just as well, considering he was still shaking with anger. Rick kept it tucked into his belt, wishing for a lot more than one Browning Hi-Power with fifteen rounds for the three of them. A machete would have come in handy, too; they kept getting scuffed and scratched by the ferns and leaves around them. Still, at least they did have a gun, and he could hardly look a gift horse in the mouth.

Too bad they didn’t have a convenient magical spear this time around…

After being surrounded by guards non-stop for days, the total absence of other humans and the relative silence made it tempting to relax a little bit. Rick knew better. He had more than enough experience with people and places trying to kill him to trust this traitorous boxed-in jungle.

Besides, concentrating on his surroundings was a lot more preferable to the alternative, namely what was undoubtedly happening outside the pyramid.

The Army of Anubis, unleashed a second time.

Rick caught himself wondering whether the Warriors actually remembered rising two years ago, fighting the Medjai, then disappearing back into the sands. The Medjai certainly remembered. Ardeth and his people must have followed the trail – which surely meant that they were outside right now, fighting their second worst nightmare _again_, dying, too, to defend humanity…

At least Ardeth was still alive. Of this he was sure. How, he had no idea, but the gut feeling was there. Funny, really; he had always felt a mixture of wariness and respect for the man, which had turned into a sense of kinship well before the Medjai had pointed out and explained the half-forgotten tattoo on his arm.

Whether Rick O’Connell really had been a Medjai in a former life or not was a moot point. They ‘got’ each other at a slightly different level than anyone else in their extended family. The first few years, Rick had chalked it up to their both being fighters, used to making the hard choices, with an ingrained sense of duty that had nothing to do with traditional military structures. Ardeth had his tribe and the task of guarding the deadly secrets of Egypt; Rick had his family, small as it was, and the deep-seated urge to shield it from harm.

When he had mentioned it to Evy, she hadn’t taken it lightly or laughed, as he might have feared; she had suggested pensively that perhaps the two men had known each other in a previous life.

Rick had smiled at the theory then. But since their adventure at Ahm Shere two years ago he wasn’t so sure.

Now was not the time for philosophical musings, though. Not with a supernatural army probably already decimating the Medjai and a madman down below channelling an Ancient Egyptian god…

“Wait,” Rick said in a low voice. The other two stopped and looked at him curiously. “We can’t just go. Hamilton’s down there commanding the Army of Anubis. We gotta take him down, _now_.”

_Look who’s getting ‘involved’ now_. He could almost hear Evy’s sharp voice in his head, telling him ‘_I_ read the book, _I_ woke him up, and I intend to stop him’ all those years ago. If it had been up to him, he would have grabbed her and hightailed it to another continent. Imhotep could be someone else’s problem. But Evelyn Carnahan was principled, opinionated, and in possession of an unerring sense of responsibility; because of that, a stubborn librarian, a reluctant adventurer, a foppish dilettante, and a determined guardian had saved the world.

_Oh God_, he thought, _Evy. Please let Evy and Alex be okay and very, very far from here_.

Aw, who was he kidding. If he knew his wife at all, she was at the heart of things right now, doing whatever she could to make things right. Rick amended his half-prayer. _Please, honey, take care of yourself. I don’t think I could bear to lose you a second time._

“I’m all for that,” said Jonathan darkly, yanking Rick back to the present, “but how? He practically has his own bloody army.”

“He’s not in command.”

Rick and Jonathan both turned to Ferguson, who was frowning, lost in thought.

“What d’you mean?”

“Remember when I said I went to see the High Priest of Osiris before we left? He said no mortal can claim Anubis’ army.”

“We got that part,” said Rick as patiently as he could, which was not saying much.

“Hang – hang on. He also said that Hamilton’s… that his body and mind would just be a vessel. Without either, the connection would be broken.”

_Kill the bad guy, save the world_. Sometimes it really was just as simple as it was complicated. At least that tune was familiar.

“Right.” Rick checked the gun again, made sure the clip was full and that sand had not jammed the mechanism. “Let’s go break a connection, then.”

Retracing their steps proved easier than going forward, as they only had to follow the broken fronds and the crushed ferns. The jungle weaved an entire tapestry of sharp smells and small sounds around them: chittering, scurrying, chattering sounds that made all three men jumpy.

Rick walked in front, followed by Ferguson, Jonathan bringing up the rear. Ferguson looked like any city dweller who’d just been dropped into a completely new and hostile environment, while Rick’s apprehension came from experience. Jonathan, he noticed, was especially jittery, the fingers of his left hand twitching every now and then.

“I can’t believe we’re going back down there to a bunch of trigger-happy idiots and one tosspot with delusions of grandeur,” Rick heard him mutter. “I suppose we’ll just go ‘Oh, don’t mind us, just popping round to kill your boss, we won’t be a bother’, and they’ll say ‘By all means, old thing, shoot the daft bastard, we’ll just put the kettle on and pass the biscuits around, don’t mind the flesh-eating scarabs and the angry pygmy mummies’…”

The steady stream of nervous chatter should have driven Rick out of his mind. In other circumstances he would have told Jonathan to can it before he really got the ball rolling. But it _was_ familiar, and thankfully not in the way the jungle rustled all around them, boxed in every direction by walls, ceilings, and a floor you couldn’t see. Besides, for all his bellyaching, Jonathan kept walking on.

The last mumbled sentences made Ferguson’s ears prick up.

“Flesh-eating scarabs? I thought those were only at Hamunaptra!”

“Figure of speech. Wouldn’t put it past the place, though.” Jonathan gave a full-body shudder. “Just what we’d need, more creepy little buggers trying to eat us alive…”

“O-_kay_,” said Rick, who didn’t like where the conversation was going, “let’s not get sidetracked here. Ahm Shere – pygmy mummies and jackal-headed soldiers from hell. Hamunaptra – flesh-eating scarabs and the Ten Plagues of Egypt. We got enough on our plate without mixing the two, dontcha think?”

Jonathan gave him a somewhat sheepish look that instantly reminded Rick of Alex when he could be bothered to actually act contrite, and Ferguson looked uncertain.

“Did you really get all ten plagues? I mean, that sounds awfully… Biblical.”

“You’d better believe it got Biblical,” Rick muttered. “Locusts, boils, blood everywhere, night at two in the afternoon… Our mummy buddy spared no expense.”

“Lucky we stopped him before the tenth, though.” Jonathan shifted uncomfortably. “‘_About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die…_’ I wasn’t especially keen on seeing whether that pertained to me or not.”

Ferguson’s eyes went round. “That’s right, your mum was Egyptian…” Then he shook his head. “Look at us. Trying to stop a madman from unleashing an army of jackal creatures, talkin’ about mummies and plagues…” He sighed. “I liked it better when me job was pushing paper and trackin’ ancient artefacts.”

Jonathan clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to our world,” he said in the tone he used to make himself look more impressive. Rick suppressed a snicker.

“Twice in ten years, Jonathan. Just twice. It’s a lot, but I don’t think we—”

He felt it the second before he had finished putting his foot down. The roots and shrubs parted and the floor vanished – he was only able to press the left side of his right foot on a hard surface before slipping. His leg followed his foot, his entire right side followed his leg, and before he knew it, he was hurtling down a steep slope, his body rolling and tumbling against the stone. Fronds and enormous leaf blades slapped and scraped at him along the way; he only managed to slow down when he caught hold of some kind of root as thick as his wrist. In the sudden lull he heard Jonathan shout his name before the root gave out and he was falling again.

Rick only had time to curl into the tightest ball he could before his body hit the ground and shut down.

* * *

A battle won without bloodshed was an even sweeter victory, Atifa reflected, gazing at the Westerners sitting in a huddle in the middle of camp. A few of them had tried to resist, fight back, but they had been quickly overwhelmed by either force or the sight of their already captive comrades. In the end, they had lined up to drop their weapons into a pile and resigned themselves to being prisoners.

All the Medjai had to do now was wait, and pray.

Maher was staring at the top of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere when she walked up to him. As usual, he didn’t need to talk to voice his thoughts. The gaze he turned to her was very eloquent.

“I know,” said Atifa in a low voice. “Everybody felt it.”

Relief flashed in her chieftain’s eyes, quickly replaced by a grimly inquisitive expression.

“Yes, I remember.” How could she forget? They had both battled the Army of Anubis before. They had both faced its herald, the darkness that washed over hearts before being deposited on the sand and turning into a many jackal-headed nightmare. Knowing what followed made it even worse than the first time. Knowing their people and their commander would be fighting it _again_, and being unable to fight side by side… That was torture.

Atifa’s head turned to the desert as though of its own accord. Maher followed her gaze, then lightly touched her shoulder and shook his head.

Maher hardly, if ever, talked. He devised tactics, gave orders, shared the good times and the bad, almost always silently. This was unusual, and a few people sneered at the idea of serving under a man who was, barring a few exceptions, a mute, but he was the best chieftain Atifa could think of serving. What he lacked in words he made up for in observation skills. He was a fount of knowledge about subjects like tracking, covert operations, and, oddly enough, constellations.

And he demonstrated every day that a man could have a kind, unguarded heart and still be a fearsome warrior in his own right. People had tried to test his role as chieftain. People had failed.

Sometimes he read other people’s faces wrong; right now, though, Atifa only needed to look at him to know he had interpreted her reaction correctly.

“I know we can’t help them,” she sighed. “And I know our place is here, guarding the Pyramid and the prisoners. But –”

She was interrupted by a loud voice and turned to see Djedi, one of her men, running up to her.

“—Coming! They’re coming!”

Maher raised his hands. One he used to get the panicked young man to stop and breathe, the other to encourage him to explain.

“The Warriors of Anubis! Wazad saw a detachment breaking from the main army. They’re coming _here_!”

Absolute fear washed over Atifa. “How many?” she asked, doing her utmost to keep her voice steady.

“Wazad didn’t say!”

Maher’s hand came to rest on Djedi’s shoulder. With his left, he indicated his eyes, and pointed to the direction Djedi had run from.

“Go,” he said, his voice low. “Count. Come back.”

Djedi swallowed hard, nodded, and ran off.

Maher’s face was stone. He strode to the nearest campfire and picked up a flaming stick, then drew a small circle with it. The aftereffects lingered for a second, giving Atifa the impression of a circle of light around the fire.

“We can’t run, can we.”

Maher shook his head.

“Then we make our stand here.”

A grim nod from her chieftain. The panic abated slightly, enough for sombre resolution to settle. Atifa took a long, deep breath, trying not to think that this might be one of her last, and turned to the men and women guarding the Westerners.

“Farid, Intef, Janan! Leave the prisoners. The Warriors are coming. Take two men each and build a barrier of fire around the camp. We’ll end up fighting inside it and probably outside, so make it big enough. Dismantle the tents if you have to, use everything that burns. Quickly, we don’t have much time.”

The camp came alive with focused despair as men and women left their posts to grab torches and fuel for the flaming barricade. From the corner of her eye, Atifa saw the Westerners mutter between each other with mounting animation.

As she struck down a nearby tent, relieved to see that the structure was made out of wood, she heard a voice call in atrocious Arabic, “Excuse me?”

She turned to the group. A dark-haired man was on his feet, his face pale in the firelight.

“Yes?” she said in English. The man appeared relieved, and continued in his own tongue.

“I thought I heard the word ‘warriors’. That didn’t mean the other, er… your compatriots, did it?”

The last word was unfamiliar, but the question was obvious.

“Your leader released the Army of Anubis. Last time it only spread out from the Oasis of Ahm Shere, but now the jackal warriors are coming here to kill us all.”

The Westerner paled even further. “We, er… How can we help?”

Atifa pinned him with her most withering stare.

“‘_Help_’?”

“Well, we all agreed that Hamilton’s a madman and that he did something really, monumentally stupid.” A couple of angry mutters rose from the back of the group. The man glared in their general direction, then turned back to her. “Most of us agreed, anyway. If we’re going to die, might as well die standing.”

Atifa took two seconds to think. Then she went to Maher and explained the situation in a few short words. Maher nodded curtly, and went back to the barricade to help and wait for Djedi’s news.

The Westerners’ firearms would be useless. They would only barely have enough blades for everyone. Some would probably find themselves armed with only torches.

This was madness. But they needed the numbers.

Atifa went back to the group to find all of them on their feet, some shivering, some resolute, the rest a mix of the two.

“What’s your name?” she asked the self-appointed spokesman.

“O—Owens. Mark Owens.”

“Mark Owens, my name is Atifa, daughter of Amenia, and I will allow you and your men to fight by our side. If anyone tries to betray us, he will be dead before his hand falls.”

Owens gulped, but stood a little taller. “You’re not the enemy. _They_ are.”

“As long as it is clear to everyone. And remember – when this is over, you are still our prisoners.”

“Better a prisoner than a bloody corpse,” said another man behind Owens. Everybody nodded in agreement.

When Djedi and Wazad came running back from their look-out post with the certitude that they were about to be set upon by about two hundred jackal-headed abominations, the combined forces of the Medjai and Hamilton’s men amounted to eighty people. Eighty human beings huddled behind a bulwark of fire, too low, too flimsy to really protect them. Eighty humans who had been fighting each other just hours ago, and stood now shoulder to shoulder, not ready to face the horrors in the dark but standing anyway.

They could hear roaring now. Atifa’s palms were sweaty around the grip of her sword.

In front of them, under the starlight, darkness advanced relentlessly.

* * *

“RICK! You’d better not be dead, so help me God I’ll – _Rick!_ For God’s sake, can you hear me?”

Jonathan knew he was yelling, knew he should _not_ be yelling, and was well past caring. Miles and miles, in fact. Rick had disappeared down some kind of incline so steep it was almost a well, and he had no idea how deep the drop was or how hard the landing had been. This, to him, more than justified screaming his throat raw, prudence be damned.

That bloody pyramid had already been the death of his sister; they had only got her back on a fluke. There was, simply put, no way in hell it would claim his brother-in-law.

Tom dropped to a crouch beside him, his face pale, and laid a hand on his shoulder that Jonathan barely felt.

“Jon – Jon, please, be quiet, mate – Baine and his guys must be lookin’ for us, you’re gonna draw them ‘ere –”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” said Jonathan, still bent over the drop trying to catch sight of how far it went and where the bottom was. “They might have rope with them. Do you have rope? Here, let me see your bag.”

He was aware that he was babbling, that his hands were shaking as he ripped Tom’s rucksack from his shoulders to rummage through its contents, and that he couldn’t seem to get his voice down to a normal pitch. It just didn’t seem very important right now.

Rick couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t be. He needed to save the world, he needed to go back to Evy and Alex once the dust settled, to butt heads with his irresponsible reprobate of a brother-in-law, to be tired and battered and still make low-key jokes about mummies and big bugs and the end of the world…

Tom grabbed Jonathan’s arm and snapped “Jon, _shut up _and listen”, making Jonathan realise two things at the same time. One, he’d actually been muttering his train of thought under his breath instead of keeping it safely in his head. And two, in the sudden silence and stillness a small sound rose from the bottom of the precipice.

“_Ow_.”

The panic rushed out of Jonathan in a flash, leaving him light-headed and shivering. He fell back on his arse in a graceless heap of limbs, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Rick?”

“…Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

“Kinda.”

“Please elaborate?”

There was a silence, then a distant rustle.

“Feels like I got dragged behind a car for a mile or two. I’m okay, though, considering. No broken bones or anything.”

“Can you stand?”

“Hell, I can even walk. _Ow_.”

Rick’s voice seemed to come from far away, but it sounded fairly strong and no less articulated than usual. When Jonathan opened his eyes again and crept towards the drop, he could make out a light-coloured blur between the criss-crossing vines and lianas. The wall Rick had fallen along to wasn’t quite vertical, but it was sheer enough to make climbing back up next to impossible, especially without a rope.

“Think we could climb down?” asked Tom, sounding doubtful. Rick’s answer was sharp and immediate.

“Don’t even try. Those vines can’t hold worth a damn. You’d break your neck.”

“Well,” Jonathan pointed out in his most reasonable voice, which had nothing on Evy’s but still worked occasionally, “we’ll just have to find a way down, then, won’t we?”

“No you won’t. _I_’_m_ coming up. I can see stairs over there.”

“I don’t, so I highly doubt yours lead up to here.”

“They gotta lead somewhere. This place looks kinda familiar, I think I know where to go.”

“Hopefully not into another death trap, old boy. Do you have any idea what Evy would say if I made it out of that bloody pyramid and you didn’t?”

“_Jonathan_. Just…” Silence. Jonathan wondered if Rick had noticed the way his voice had pitched up near the end of the sentence. With his luck, he probably had. Hence the tone – a mixture of ‘shut up’ and ‘calm down’. “You do remember I still have the gun, right?”

“…Yes?” Jonathan said uncertainly. “And?”

“So you two are gonna hunker down where it’s safe and not attract the attention of the other guys with guns till I can come up and even the odds a little.”

“That’s your plan, is it?”

“Yup.”

Jonathan was torn. On one hand, the idea of staying put in relative safety had a lot of appeal. On the other, it meant keeping the group separated, and he knew from experience that it could lead to all sorts of bad things.

“Your plan,” he declared, mostly for the sake of argument, “is terrible.”

“Maybe. But that’s what we’re gonna do.”

_Well, nothing for it I suppose._

“Watch your footing while you’re down there?”

After eleven years, Jonathan didn’t even need to see Rick to know when he was being glared at.

“Just stay out of trouble,” Rick said, and then the light blur disappeared and silence descended once more.

After a while, he heard a shuffle behind him. Tom held his rucksack in one hand, picking up his things with the other.

“You made a right mess of my bag,” he said quietly, a small smile in his voice. Jonathan ran a hand over his face and shuffled closer, picking up a notebook.

“Yes, sorry about that. I – well. I was in a bit of a hurry.”

Tom shot him a wry look, but didn’t comment.

In his frantic search for rope, Jonathan hadn’t really looked at the contents of the bag properly. What he found lying around and handed back to Tom to put away ended up being a pencil bag, a toolkit, two clips of ammunition for the gun currently in Rick’s possession, a half-empty flask of water, a meagre first-aid kit, and two small notebooks.

“You know,” he said, “maybe it comes from having a brother-in-law who can’t travel anywhere without packing half an arsenal, but I think you’re falling a little short of the mark regarding weaponry.”

Tom made a face.

“I don’t know what you think me job is, Jon, but I’m not some kind of gunslinger. Don’t get me wrong, I can shoot, but that’s not what I signed up for.” He sighed. “Then again, what I signed up for wasn’t really what I signed up for, so…”

Jonathan paused, toolkit in hand.

“Well, what _did_ you sign up for, then?”

“Protecting antiques,” Tom replied firmly. “Only, you know, not stealing them from museums. And pretending I’m an idiot as a cover.”

“Only pretending?”

“Oh, do shut up,” grumbled Tom as Jonathan grinned. “I fooled you, didn’t I?”

Jonathan felt his grin slip several notches. A lot had happened since that late afternoon in Giza when his friend had pointed a gun at him and stopped being ‘Tommy’. ‘Tommy’ was a warm memory of loud laughter, daring escapes, bright eyes over pints clinking in the comfortable darkness of a well-loved pub. Tom, on the other hand, was a fairly decent man chucked into a complex situation, who had a wife he loved dearly but lied to about his job, who had not wanted to bring harm to an old friend but had done so anyway.

Who had also put himself between Jonathan and a gun twice, and almost got killed for it.

A lot had happened, indeed, but the reminder was still anything but innocuous. It poked at certain areas that were still somewhat tender.

Tom’s look was apologetic this time.

“Bit too soon?”

“Bit too soon.” A thought occurred, and Jonathan allowed his smile to resurface, cheekily, if a little gingerly still. “You know you didn’t fool Evy for a second, though. She had the measure of you, right enough.”

“Smart woman.”

“You have no idea.”

Into the bag the toolkit went, and Tom picked up the rucksack. It still looked mostly empty despite everything that had gone into it.

The few steps between the edge of whatever it was Rick had fallen into and a safer spot near an archway were made in silence. Which was how they heard the footfall.

It wasn’t Rick. That much was obvious. Unless he had picked up an escort along the way.

Jonathan pushed Tom against a wall and flattened himself next to him. Maybe, if they didn’t breathe or think too loudly, the men walking along the wall wouldn’t cross the doorway. Maybe they wouldn’t see them. Maybe…

Jonathan and Tom looked at each other, drew their hands back in unison, and drove their fists into the first faces that came their way.

Two men fell to the floor, groaning, while a third sprang back, raising his hands frantically.

“Whoa, whoa, stop! We were looking for you!”

“Of course you were,” spat Tom, massaging his knuckles. Jonathan knew exactly how he felt. The shock of colliding with his opponent’s skull had made his entire forearm ring like a bell for half a minute. Surely boxing hadn’t hurt that much when he was a lad. “Baine’s orders were clear, weren’t they?”

“But we’re not acting _on_ Baine’s orders,” muttered one of the men on the ground, rubbing his jaw. “He’s a thug. And Hamilton’s off his bloody nut.”

“Come to your senses, have you?” Jonathan quipped. “That couldn’t have happened earlier, before Hamilton’s little light show and especially before you tried to murder us and my brother-in-law?”

The man who was still standing mumbled something Jonathan didn’t catch, then asked, “Where is the American anyway?”

“He’ll be joining us shortly. What are you doing here, if you changed your minds about killing us?”

The tall, broad-shouldered man Tom had punched was the last to pick himself up from the floor. “Like Vaughn said, we were looking for you.”

“We, er,” said Vaughn meekly, “thought you might know a way out of this death trap.”

Tom’s eyes grew cynical. “Of course. Turn right, then straight up until the supernatural army from hell.”

“And that’s if you escape the pygmy mummies,” Jonathan added smugly, crossing his arms. “But considering the Army of Anubis is your boss’ fault, you might want to do something about that first.”

Two of the three men looked at each other uncertainly. The burly one scoffed. “Pygmy mummies. You must really think we’re some sort of—”

“I don’t have to think, old boy, I _know_ you’re the worst sort of, well, sort. But I’m not pulling your leg.”

“He’s really not, Norton,” said Tom, shaking his head. “Norton, Vaughn, Wyndham,” he added, turning to Jonathan and pointing at each of them in turn. “Maybe not the biggest pillocks I’ve ever worked with after all, but they come close. Are you even armed?”

“Of course we are!” protested Wyndham, opening his bag and taking out a stick of dynamite. “Look, we have explosives, and guns, and –”

“What a _splendid_ idea. How about you lend us a couple?”

Wyndham looked at Jonathan like he had sprouted a second head.

“Why would _we_ want to give _you_ weapons?”

“Because somebody’s going to have to do something about bloody Hamilton and Anubis’ bloody army,” Jonathan snapped, nerves already frayed and nearing the end of their tether. “And frankly, the fact that _I_’m going to have to be a part of it should tell you just how bollocksed the whole situation is!”

Either his little tirade hit its mark, or the three agents simply didn’t want to get punched again. Jonathan found himself in possession of a handgun similar to the one Rick had taken from Tom, while Tom checked the clip of his own borrowed gun. Norton appeared to be sulking.

Wyndham slunk up to Jonathan, dynamite stick still in hand. “Er… When you said ‘pygmy mummies’… You didn’t mean the chaps in the Congo, did you?”

“Absolutely not. I mean eldritch little creatures about knee-high with sharp teeth and knives who delight in disembowelling people. They make spiffy shrunken heads, too, I’ve seen them.”

“Jon, stop scarin’ the kids,” said Tom. He was a few feet away, investigating a pile of something that must have been stone before it got covered in gunk. “Especially Wyndham here. He’s a bit trigger-happy.”

“I am not!” protested Wyndham.

“Oh yeah? You were one of the first to shoot at me not an hour ago, you little –”

Jonathan shrugged. “He asked.”

Norton said nothing, but looked uncomfortable. Vaughn glanced at Jonathan uncertainly and went to sit not far from Tom with a thoughtful look on his face. The three agents seemed to have absolutely no idea what to do next. Tom appeared to have no such problem: he was digging into the half-solid muck, sleeves rolled up on his arms, trying to extract what looked to be a statuette of a scorpion and a big tablet out of the sludge.

There was a lull in the conversation, followed by somewhat awkward silence. Jonathan, who had no patience for awkward silences, was racking his mind for something to do to pass the time until Rick found them when he realised his heart was going a mile a minute. It was pounding against his ribcage, making him almost sick to his stomach, as though angry that his brain wasn’t catching up.

But what…

When it finally hit him, it hit him like a locomotive going on full speed ahead. The pyramid was silent. Deadly silent. The little sounds that came from unseen bugs and critters had stopped. And this could only mean one thing.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry.

“Tom?”

Tom looked up, puzzled and somewhat apprehensive.

“Yeah?”

A sense of déjà vu struck Jonathan, whose brain helpfully provided him with the memory of him and Tom a few days ago, seconds before the Medjai attack on the camp, saying the same two words, down to the inflections.

“They’re coming.”

A susurrus ran through the plants around them, a hissing whisper that seemed to carry small cackling laughter with it. Jonathan felt the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He clutched his gun and glanced wildly around.

The movement got the agents’ attention. Only then did they notice the sounds.

“Here,” said Norton, striding towards the next room, “what’s th—”

A spear whistled through the air and skewered his forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Jonathan screamed. So did Wyndham, half a second later. Vaughn and Tom scrambled up, spouting a mix of curses and inarticulate yelling.

“Fall back! Fall back!” Vaughn shouted. Wyndham ran up to him and Tom, wild-eyed, waving his ingot of dynamite like a torch.

“Where _to_!?” he wailed. The hissing seemed to come from all directions, bouncing from the walls, surrounding them, taunting them. It seemed to drill into Jonathan’s skull, driving out all coherent thought. He kept pointing his gun at the rustling ferns, searching desperately for something to shoot.

Behind him, Tom yelled, “Don’t, you bloody idiot –”

Jonathan whirled round to see Tom, still cradling his big tablet against him with his left arm, reach for Wyndham with the hand that also held his gun, while Vaughn’s jaw dropped open at the sight of the still-open lighter in Wyndham’s hand.

The tableau burned itself crystal-clear on Jonathan’s retinas just before the dynamite exploded.

It took a while for Jonathan to realise he hadn’t, in fact, lost consciousness. The silence had been replaced with a shrill, high-pitched sound, like some sort of alarm going off much too late. The ferns and leaves were no longer rustling. In fact, when he opened his eyes, blinking a few times to drive away the mist, the plants were all gone. In their place was a mountain of broken bricks and big chunks of what had been a wall of gold and stone.

The plants were gone… and so were the four people who had been in the chamber with him.

Jonathan’s mouth opened and closed a few times before his brain sparked into life again. When it did, he took a deep breath and shouted, “TOM!”

“Shush, don’t, I’m right here,” muttered a very welcome voice from the other side of the wall. “Are you all right? Are _they_ gone?”

The emphasis on ‘they’ puzzled Jonathan for all of four seconds before the memories of a couple of minutes ago stampeded back through his brain with the subtlety of a herd of panicked camels. He scrambled up, swaying and seeing stars from the head rush, and clutched the gun he had picked up without even thinking.

Nothing.

The sounds he had come to associate with the in-pyramid jungle were back as though they never stopped. There was no sniggering, no hissing, no susurrus. Only the usual rustling and skittering that meant normal jungle activity. For a given value of ‘normal’, of course.

“Sounds like it,” he said uncertainly, putting the gun in his belt. “Do you hear anything from your side?”

“Only Wyndham’s teeth chattering. He had a bit of a scare.” Tom’s voice had the biting, icy quality it only got when he was badly rattled. “Which should be a lesson to him in the future – _if_ he has a future, considering he’s so terminally stupid _as to light a dynamite stick in confined spaces with other people close by!_”

“I am not!” protested Wyndham, more weakly than the first time. In the background, Vaughn groaned.

“Bloody hell, Norton…”

The reminder was sobering. The image of the poor bastard with a spear through his head remained seared in Jonathan’s mind whether his eyes were open or closed. At least it had been instantaneous and presumably painless.

“I’m so sorry, Vaughn,” he heard Tom say quietly. Wyndham gave a faint whimper.

There was a silence, during which Jonathan – mostly for something to do with his hands – walked up to the cave-in and looked for rocks to move to take the wall down. Or at least make a big enough hole in it for a man to go through.

“Where do you think those creatures went?” asked Tom after a while. Jonathan kept inspecting the stones.

“As far away from us as possible, hopefully. What was that thing I saw you mucking about with?”

“I have no idea. I think it’s an incantation of sorts, probably for the Scorpion King? I can only make out a few hieroglyphs. It says… hang on… _Followers of the Sunset King_ – no, wait, _of the ruler of the West_… something something _on their side_… It’s ‘ard to tell underneath that crust.”

The Scorpion King was dead, and so was Imhotep, yet Jonathan couldn’t help a shudder. “Would you mind not reading it aloud? Just in case. We really don’t need _another_ supernatural menace after us.”

Behind the rock wall, Tom chuckled.

“You didn’t used to be superstitious.”

“I didn’t used to see cursed mummies come back to life every ten years.”

“Fair point.” A pause. “Jon? Can I ask—”

Jonathan never knew what Tom meant to ask him. He was interrupted by a hair-raising scream that sounded like Wyndham and an awful noise that didn’t sound like it could – or should – ever come from a human being but probably came from Vaughn.

From then on, it was pandemonium.

“Where are they…?”

“Tom, what’s—”

“DOWN!”

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod—”

“Bloody _hell_ –”

“Ferguson! They’re—”

“Oh f—_Run!_”

“_TOM!_” Jonathan clawed at the wall, no longer paying attention to which stones he should take down first, completely beside himself with panic and worry. The only thing on his mind was making his way through the cave-in to get to Tom. What else might make its way across didn’t even occur to him. He barely registered a rock falling on his instep.

And then, all of a sudden, there was nothing. The only sound he was aware of was his own blood hammering against his eardrums. Around him, the jungle kept breathing, chattering, living. Of Tom and the other two agents, there was no trace.

“Tom? Are you… Tom, bloody answer me, please.”

Jonathan hardly dared to breathe. His heart had jumped up into his throat, blocking all sound, making his voice come out strangled.

“Tom, I think it’s safe to come out now. They’re gone. …Tom?”

Why wouldn’t the bloody rocks come down already!

“_Tom, for God’s sake!_”

Only silence answered him.

“Tom? …Tommy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I can hardly believe believe it took 178 pages and almost 111,000 words before this story passed the Bechdel Test, and barely at that. I’m glad it did, though :o)  
2) The further this chapter got for eleven years was Ardeth’s part (which was supposed to open the chapter) and 1,200 words of Rick’s, Jonathan’s and Tom’s scene. Hopefully the transition between 26 years old writer Bel and 37 years old writer Bel is seamless. (The rewrites helped.)  
3) I _am_ sorry about that last scene and you are free to yell as much as you like as long as it’s inarticulate shouting and not actual insults.


	18. A Rock and a Hard Place

Alex had been in trouble before, or at least thought he had been in trouble before. This, he decided as he watched the Medjai and Hamilton’s men wait for battle behind their flimsy rampart of fire, was so much worse.

He had promised his mum that he wouldn’t set foot outside the dirigible. It had been a solemn promise, almost a vow. He didn’t make a lot of those. But the look on his mother’s face and the way her voice had almost shaken compelled him to take it as seriously as he could.

Besides, judging from people’s faces, he wouldn’t be much safer on the ground anyway.

It looked as though everyone had forgotten him. Mum and Izzy had been down into the pyramid for some time now, and the Medjai had been so busy preparing for the unexpected horror coming their way that nobody had even noticed the boy on the dirigible. To be honest, Alex didn’t particularly want to be noticed.

But, he thought with rising terror as the Army of Anubis charged the meagre forces behind the fire with a roar straight from somebody’s nightmare, he probably would be at some point.

Alex had been terrified when Imhotep had taken off his mask and shown him his true face. He still dreamed about it, sometimes – that, and a few other things. It had been easier, later, when the mummy had looked human and Lock-Nah had been under strict orders not to kill him, to try to be brave like Mum, tough like Dad, and make jokes like Uncle Jon. Imhotep had been clever, smug, confident – all very human traits. The monsters that now crashed against the fires and the swords and threatened to destroy the human beings fighting desperately were not clever. They were not smug. They were not driven by ambition, a quest for power, or love. They were just mindless killing machines.

And if they managed to break through the Medjai’s defences, they would reach him in a matter of seconds.

From the ground came a shriek over the noise of battle. The sound shook Alex out of his fear-induced daze. He ran to the command booth and stared at the controls, trying hard to remember everything Izzy had told him about Dee.

His mind drew a complete blank. He groaned and pressed the palms of his fists against his eyes.

“Okay,” he whispered out loud. “Okay. To get Dee off the ground, I need to… I need…”

He was alarmingly close to tears when the word hit him like lightning.

“Buoyancy! I need positive buoyancy!”

Right. Positive buoyancy meant being lighter than air. To achieve that… They had talked about it in school last year…

Alex snapped his eyes open and stared at the control panel, finally knowing what to look for.

What he needed to do was heat up the air in the balloon. For that, he had to start up the engine first, then throttle it at just the right time and adjust the elevators – the angle had to be steep enough to get the dirigible into the wind, but not so much that it just shot up in the sky or tipped over.

_Right. Easy enough_.

“How do you start up this thing!?” he cried in exasperation and mounting panic. Izzy had made it look so easy…

_Wait_. What was the _one_ thing Izzy hadn’t wanted him to touch?

Alex’s eyes darted to a little knob protruding near the helm’s axle. He turned it in one swift wrist movement like he’d seen his dad start up the car time and time again.

A shudder ran through the whole dirigible and a low sound, like a purr, resonated through the balloon and inside the cabin. The boiler had flared up. Even from the wheelhouse, Alex could see the glow of the flame.

Izzy had said it took five to ten minutes to fill up the whole balloon with hot air. Alex used that time to carefully study all the knobs, levers and pedals he could see, wracking his brain to remember what each of them did.

When he could finally feel the dirigible move upwards, he grabbed the axe Izzy had shown to his mum in case of fire or other emergencies and ran to the mooring lines.

The front lines had to go first so Dee would tip up rather than down. Alex brought the axe on the thick ropes with all the strength of a desperate ten-year-old. He hacked and hacked at the hemp, nicking the deck under it. Whether cursing with every blow helped or not, he didn’t know, but he kept going just in case it did.

It blocked the sounds coming from the camp, at least.

By the time he tackled the last line, the dirigible was almost fully in the air, straining against the rope. Alex’s arms ached fiercely, as did his back and shoulders; sweat dripped into his eyes and made his shirt stick to him like glue. The axe seemed to get heavier with every chop.

“Come _on_,” he muttered, “come on, _break_, you rotten goddang bleeding –”

Miraculously, the rope split with one last hack. The untethered dirigible, finally breaking free, rose above the ground so suddenly Alex lost his footing and tumbled to the deck. He scrambled back up, quite breathless, axe forgotten on the floor, and ran to the rail.

The ground was falling back beneath Dee, the dilapidated tents and forgotten vehicles growing smaller and smaller. In the light of the fire wall, now staved in at several spots, he could see the Warriors of Anubis storming the camp, cutting, slashing, hacking at the people there like he’d cut and slashed and hacked at the ropes. A few tried to jump up and reach the dirigible, but by now he was high enough in the air to be safe. The humans were just as outnumbered and outgunned (_outsworded, maybe_, Alex thought) as they had been at the start of battle, but they put up a good fight, defending one another fiercely.

The numbers were still stacked against them, though, ridiculously high.

Alex had never started up such a complex piece of machinery by himself. A tiny part of him, the part that was justifiably proud, wanted to whoop and holler, but it was completely overwhelmed by exhaustion and terror.

_Mum… Dad… Uncle Jon… I really, _really_ hope you’re okay down there_.

* * *

For all that he had lived virtually his whole life in Egypt, Izzy had never actually been inside a pyramid. His domain was the sky, not the bowels of the earth or those glorified corpse depositories where rich people piled up their belongings in the hopes that they’d follow them after death. Izzy knew better than to believe _that_ was true. At least he hoped it wasn’t, as he had sold away a few dubiously-acquired items in his time, and he didn’t like the idea of their dead owners coming after him for that. _Finders keepers, mate. Let the living enjoy what the dead can’t._

When he had followed Mrs O’Connell into the pyramid, he had not known what to expect. Darkness, surely, and dusty stone walls, maybe a few rats, scorpions, or spiders. As it turned out, he’d been completely off the mark. There actually was a weak greenish light coming from who knew where, just enough to see by and – hopefully – spot the booby traps. The dusty walls he had anticipated appeared to be made of different shades of gold, copper and amber, half-hidden behind the kind of lush jungle that would put the greenest oases to shame. And while he could certainly hear skittering and chirping between the fronds, so far he had not encountered any kind of wildlife.

Maybe this last point shouldn’t be the one that worried him the most, but it really did.

Mrs O’Connell walked in front, a gun in one hand and a sword in the other, and he covered their backs with a pistol and a few magazines in an old leather bandolier. The realisation that they had been too late to stop the bad guys before they summoned the army from hell had turned her pale, quiet, and even more resolute. There was no sense in stopping now, she’d said, and Izzy had followed. They faced certain death on the surface and only probable death below, after all.

Every now and then, the ridiculousness of the situation slapped him in the face like a dead fish. _What the hell am I doing here? I’m a pilot, for God’s sake, not an adventurer. Why did I sign up for this again?_

The answer was, as always, O’Connell. Both of them, actually. Or two and a half, if you counted the kid.

Mrs O’Connell turned to him, her eyes bright in the gloom.

“You’re very quiet,” she whispered, something like approval in her voice. Izzy shrugged.

“Force of habit. One time O’Connell and I had to sneak out from the casbah in Beni Mellal. Not alerting two hundred Moroccan soldiers is pretty good incentive to be stealthy.”

Oh, he’d got her attention now. Her eyes gleamed.

“What happened?”

“Well, O’Connell didn’t do stealth at the time. We ended up getting chased by two hundred Moroccan soldiers and had to leg it to Casablanca in disguise – on _donkeys_ – because they’d shot my plane down the day before.”

And didn’t that little memory still smart. Two days on a rocky, bumpy road, spent getting beaten down by the sun and biting a lot of sand. He was pretty sure his ass had never quite recovered, and that was before it caught a bullet. His donkey, on the other hand, had seemed completely fine.

Maybe it was the mental picture of O’Connell on a donkey, or maybe it conjured a completely different memory, but Mrs O’Connell gave a small smile.

“He’s improved since.”

“Well, I hope so. That was a long time ago.”

One of the things Izzy had dreaded, when the woman and the boy had blasted his door down and demanded he dropped everything and took them to the arse-end of nowhere, was to have to dredge up fun anecdotes of O’Connell from two decades ago. Not that he had forgotten, but most of the more… palatable ones had been used up during the return trip to Cairo two years ago. There was a kid present who drank in his every word whenever his father’s past was concerned, which meant that any story involving anything more than mildly criminal activity – or worse, O’Connell chasing tail and making a fool of himself – was off. Which didn’t leave room for a lot of stories.

But then the whole family had been reunited at the time. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more different from the little bit of sightseeing they’d had to get there. And it was certainly different from these past few days, with Evelyn O’Connell’s husband and brother in dire straits, a worried kid, and a tense desert warrior onboard. Maybe that was why the kid and his mother had kept their prying to a minimum.

_Bloody hell, the kid_. He’d better find both boy and dirigible in one piece when he got back.

They were walking again, quietly. Every now and then Mrs O’Connell stopped to hack at branches and leaves to uncover hieroglyphs on the walls; she muttered to herself as she deciphered them, finger moving slowly on the pictures, then went on confidently.

Izzy still couldn’t tell whether the sword was serving its intended purpose or not. Considering how steady it was in her hand, that was doubtful.

The noises – as though muffled by the undergrowth around them – almost caught him by surprise.

As they approached an antechamber of some sort, he could hear yelping, panicked yelling, and gunshots, all coming closer and closer very quickly. Then he could feel a gust of wind on his face, carrying a rotten stench that turned his stomach and the sound of high-pitched, hissing laughter.

In front of him, Mrs O’Connell stopped dead.

“Oh my God,” she said in a toneless voice which for some reason sent chills down Izzy’s spine.

Then she ran forwards without looking back.

Izzy, cursing and shaking his head, ran after her.

The scene he came across made him wish he could just drop everything and run back in the other direction. A dozen white guys in dark suits were fleeing, some silent, some screaming their heads off, shooting at and being pursued by – Izzy squinted into the darkness – nasty-looking creatures about twelve inches high armed with spears, knives, and blowpipes. One man at the back tripped and fell; the critters swarmed him and stabbed him with shocking glee.

Mrs O’Connell sheathed her sword, aimed, and shot at the creatures one by one.

Once his brain reconnected with his body, Izzy did the same, muttering darkly what even he wasn’t sure were curses or prayers.

When the smoke cleared and relative peace settled once more, four of the guys were dead, and so were half a dozen of the creatures, their remains scattered across the room. The rest had fled.

One of the suits stared at their unlikely saviours.

“Th—thank you,” he stammered. “What were – did you just – who are you?”

“I’m a librarian,” Mrs O’Connell answered with curt dignity. “Dr Evelyn O’Connell, British Museum. Now, I’m looking for Charles Hamilton, or failing that, the two men you and your… _associates_ have brought inside this pyramid against their will. Where are they?”

The guy just gaped. Fortunately, another one, more alert, took over and said, “Would you be the Dr O’Connell who discovered Hamunaptra, by any chance?”

Mrs O’Connell made an impatient gesture. “Yes, yes, that’s me – now, where are my husband and my brother? And your superior?”

The suit shared an uneasy look with his mates. Then he turned sheepish eyes at Mrs O’Connell.

“Hamilton’s down there, but I think he messed with something a little too… Well. He stepped on a seal, and then there was this weird light, and he hovered in the air… Let’s just say I don’t think he’s _there_ now, so to speak.”

“You mean the wheel’s turning but the bloody hamster is dead,” muttered another suit in a slight Scottish accent.

“You mean the bastard responsible for all this mess isn’t even going to answer for it?” Izzy shook his head in disgust. “Typical.” Then the guy’s exact words registered. “Wait, he _hovered_? What the hell is going on down there?”

The grumpy Scot looked at him and Mrs O’Connell with hollow eyes. “There was a little light show, and now Hamilton’s possessed or something. He must have given orders to Baine, because –”

Mrs O’Connell interrupted him, frowning. “Baine?”

“Agent Baine, he’s the head of the hit squad. Hamilton picked him for a second-in-command, God knows why. Anyway, Baine ordered us to kill them. But,” he quickly added as Mrs O’Connell’s eyes glittered dangerously, “they ran off with Ferguson, and, er… some of us took the opportunity to run. We’d had enough of this nonsense.”

“Yeah, I thought our job was to protect treasures, not kill our own colleagues,” a young man piped up in the back.

Mrs O’Connell’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘kill your own colleagues’? And why did Rick and Jonathan run off with Tom Ferguson? He was responsible for their kidnapping in the first place.”

The Scottish suit shrugged. “Ferguson tried to reason with… well, us. Said cold-blooded murder wasn’t our job. Baine wouldn’t have it, though.”

“Then the American grabbed him and took his gun,” said another man. “That’s when Baine said he wouldn’t let one agent ‘compromise the mission’. I think he would’ve shot Ferguson if O’Connell hadn’t grabbed him and bolted.”

“And that’s the last we saw of them.”

“The _three_ of them, you mean?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs O’Connell fell silent, looking at the corridor leading away from the chamber, her face pinched. It wasn’t difficult for Izzy to guess why. O’Connell and Carnahan were both somewhere in that maze, surrounded by evil creatures and with a kill order on their heads. For all he – and she – knew, they were irretrievably lost, even if they somehow managed to evade both threats.

The thought must have occurred to at least one agent or two, because Izzy saw a few avoid her eyes and look uncomfortable.

“The exit is that way,” she finally said, pointing towards the way they had come from. “I hacked at the vegetation for directions, just follow the cut branches to the surface. But I’m warning you, you may not like what you find up there. Your superior did ‘mess with’ dark forces beyond his understanding. He released the Army of Anubis. If you are scholars as well as treasure-seekers and kidnappers, you will know why stopping Hamilton is paramount.”

Her tone was biting, her accent even posher than usual.Her voice sliced through the room, razor-like, even sharper than that sword of hers.

The suits looked at each other, then slunk out of the room in a single file, guns still drawn, glancing everywhere uneasily. The Scot was last to leave the room, and threw the pilot and the librarian an almost apologetic glance.

“I’ve heard about Anubis’ Army. I’ll take my chance with them. Down here there’s just death.”

Izzy watched them leave, shoulder to shoulder with Mrs O’Connell, who looked dismayed.

“But they – oh, what utter _rot_ – what about taking responsibility and stopping Hamilton while we still have a chance?”

Izzy shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I think taking on this pyramid of death with the murder midgets and possessed maniacs is just as suicidal as goin’ up to face that army. The company’s a smidge better down here, that’s all.” Some of the tension left Mrs O’Connell’s face, and he took that as a victory. “So – the British Museum? You really are a librarian, huh?”

“Yes, I am,” she said with a small smile, “and proud to be. I love my job.”

“I can see that.” He nodded to her sword and the pistol she still held. She didn’t miss the tongue-in-cheek undertone in his voice. Her lips twitched.

“By the way,” Izzy asked as they started again towards the heart of the pyramid, “should I actually be calling you _Dr_ O’Connell instead of Mrs?”

The smile got warmer. “Evelyn will do.”

“Right. So, uh –”

There was a tremor, somewhere deep in the pyramid, followed by a muffled roar. It was close enough to hear, and feel, but far enough that the floor didn’t shake. Izzy grabbed Evelyn’s arm and asked in a low voice, as though speaking up would make things worse, “Did you feel that?”

Evelyn nodded, her face set. She strode on, down the corridor and into the half-darkness.

Still Izzy followed, gun in hand, questioning his life choices.

* * *

Rick felt rather than heard the explosion. It reverberated under his feet and into the walls, shaking fine dust from the ceiling, and made him stop dead in his tracks.

For a heart-stopping moment he expected the whole pyramid to crumble on top of him; the night was already one of the lousiest he’d ever had in his life – which was saying something – and getting away with a fall like the one he’d just had relatively unscathed made him wonder if he hadn’t reached his miracle quota for the week. But the rumbling and the tremors quickly died down, leaving him puzzled and vaguely apprehensive.

He shoved both sensations to the back of his mind to better focus on the tasks at hand, namely surviving, finding Jonathan and Ferguson, and stopping Hamilton somehow. The rest he would worry about later.

The room he had fallen into earlier had felt somewhat familiar, and the stairs he’d taken did lead to an upper level, but making his way back up was taking longer than he had thought. He walked at a leisurely pace, breathing deeply, gun in hand but finger off the trigger just in case. The collection of bruises he’d acquired during his fall made him wince every now and then as muscles and bones protested vigorously. But he would deal with _that_ later, too.

The corridor ended on a larger room with a short stairway at the end, the steps covered in sand. Finally something that did more than ring a bell. They had passed this way earlier, following the gurgle which told them that, logic be damned, somewhere in this pyramid was a small stream.

The murmur of water was soon joined by other sounds – scuffing, scraping, and someone grunting in effort, interspersed with shouts.

Rick tucked his sidearm into his belt with a relieved sigh. He had found his brother-in-law.

Alarm immediately flared up again, quashing the relief, when he realised Jonathan was screaming.

“TOMMY! Hold on, I’m – oh, for Heaven’s _sake_ –”

There was a lot in his voice. Anguish, for one, and desperation, plus the flat-out refusal to look something too terrible for words in the face. Rick’s heart took a nosedive in his chest. Whatever had happened, it did _not_ sound good.

The impression was confirmed when he reached the end of the corridor. The explosion had obviously come from there: the chamber had lost half its space and was now partitioned by a mound of broken stone and gold blocks, the smallest ten inches large. At the foot of the newly-created wall stood Jonathan, dishevelled and covered in dust, pulling with all his might at a chunk of rock to dislodge it.

There was a motionless body in a dark suit on the other side of the room. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be one of the agents.

Rick’s blood turned to ice in his veins. The corpse had a spear planted deep into his skull, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Jonathan?” he asked, picking up the dead agent’s gun and scanning the room for slaughter-happy critters. “What happened?”

Jonathan didn’t answer, still busy trying to get through the cave-in by any means necessary. He only seemed to register his brother-in-law’s presence when Rick grabbed him by the arms and pivoted him to face him. His normally slanted eyes were very wide, very blue, and mildly crazed as they kept darting back to the wall.

“Rick!” he exclaimed breathlessly, his voice a full octave higher than usual. “Just the man I wanted to see. Can you give me a hand here? I’m trying to –”

“Jonathan, hey – c’mon, Jon, stop. Breathe.” There was no sign of the pygmy mummies at all, no sound, no movement, which meant they could afford to linger for a minute. Rick forced his voice down to an appropriate pitch and volume and asked, more slowly, “What happened here?”

Jonathan was still breathing much too quickly and shallowly for comfort, but he was quiet for a few seconds as the question sank in. Then he swallowed hard. When Rick let go of his arms he seemed to fold in on himself and had to grab the wall to stay on his feet.

“Three agents came our way,” he finally said, pitch mostly back to normal but his voice rough, like he’d swallowed a mouthful of sand. “They said they were looking for a way out. We made them give us a gun each, T—Tom and I. They had spares, and dynamite as well.”

Rick nodded, starting to understand.

“I heard the explosion.”

“One of them got scared. Reacted badly. They got trapped behind the… _that_. They…” Jonathan breathed deeply, a shudder in both inhale and exhale. “Remember the pygmy mummies? Little buggers attacked with no warning. Killed, er, poor Norton over there. We thought they’d gone after the blast, but…”

His voice trailed off, and he stared at the wall again.

“I heard them,” he finished, so low Rick had to strain his ears to hear. “I heard them, until… I didn’t.”

_Damn_. No wonder he’d been screaming.

Rick heaved a sigh and rubbed his face. For a second the weight of everything – Hamilton, Anubis’ Army, Baine and his orders, all the running and falling and the whole damn night – fell on him like a ton of bricks, making his shoulders slump. Sometimes it got tempting to just wish for a break.

From the looks of it, Jonathan was feeling it, too. That and a whole bunch of other things. He stared into the near distance as though afraid of what might happen if he blinked, his eyes red and puffy.

“He’s dead, isn’t he.”

His voice cracked. Something inside Rick’s ribcage gave an unpleasant twinge.

“Maybe, maybe not. If he made it, he’ll try to find a way out of this place.”

Actually, Ferguson was most likely dead behind that wall of gold and rocks, but Rick would be damned if he said it so bluntly. Bad-mannered he could be on occasion, he knew, and not subtle, but never cruel.

Jonathan blinked; the dam broke.

Rick put his hand on Jonathan’s right shoulder, looking away to give him some privacy, and allowed them one more minute.

Jonathan’s breathing evened out gradually, but there was something hollow and lifeless in his eyes, like an echo of the expression Rick remembered noticing even in the haze of his own grief and rage when Evy had been killed.

Rick’s heart sank even lower. Pygmy mummies inside; jackal soldiers of death outside. Nowhere was safe. And Evy – and Ardeth, possibly even Alex – had to be right in the thick of it.

Some things were too awful to contemplate. Especially when you already had to face them once.

“Come on,” he said eventually, giving Jonathan’s shoulder one last squeeze. “They’re probably getting killed up there too, but at least we can do something about _that_. I think.”

The prospect of having something to actually do revived Jonathan a little. He rubbed his eyes and fell into step beside Rick like a sleepwalker, pointedly not looking back at the cave-in. Then a similar thought seemed to occur to him and he abruptly lost what little colour he had left.

“I say, Rick,” he breathed, “you don’t suppose Evy’s—? I mean, surely she’s somewhere safe, isn’t she?”

Rick kept walking, straining his eyes in the near-darkness, his hand on the dead agent’s gun. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

“We’re here,” he finally said once he was sure his voice would be even. “So are the bad guys and the army from hell. Where do you think she’d rather be?”

“Oh dear God.”

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a little while, eyes flicking here and there, both dreading the same sounds, the same silence, and the same thoughts.

Then Jonathan whispered, “I wonder how Ardeth’s doing. Good God, I hope he’s all right.”

“He’s not. But he’s alive.”

“How do you know that?”

Rick had to think about his answer. Once more, he had no idea how he knew Ardeth was, indeed, alive, but it _felt_ obvious.

Another thing to deal with later. At least this one was somewhat comforting.

“Call it a gut feeling.”

Jonathan looked at him curiously.

“And that ‘gut feeling’ also tells you he’s not all right, does it?”

Rick shook his head. “Nah, that’s just deduction. He lost a lot of men on the field of battle last time. Can’t imagine this time will be different. No officer worth his salt would be ‘all right’ after that, and he’s a good one.”

Their post-battle visit to the Medjai camp two years ago remained one of the more unsettling memories he had. Rick O’Connell was no stranger to war, defeat and victory, and the terrible moments as the dust settled when the astonished joy of finding yourself still alive met the mounting horror of counting the dead and the wounded. Amazing how bitter victory could taste. But at least the opponents he had faced in war had been human beings, people who breathed, dreamed, and bled just like he did. The Medjai – men and women, young and old – had battled otherworldly nightmares, beings of sand and magic, who had disappeared after their defeat, leaving behind only death and the terror they inspired.

There had been a kid – a boy that could have been Alex in a decade – the memory of whose eyes still unnerved Rick after a couple of years, even after everything he’d seen. His wound had been ugly, and he faced a drawn-out, painful death, but you could see that wasn’t why he was screaming. He’d been reliving the battle in his feverish brain, forced to face the Army of Anubis again, out of his mind with terror.

Jonathan’s voice – pretty low, whether because of their need for stealth or because he was still processing what had happened – pulled him out of the memory.

“Knowing Ardeth, he must be more than worth his salt. Proper frontline general, I’d wager. Ever served under that kind of rare bird?”

“A couple.” Considering his first officer hadn’t lost a single man in four months of fighting and his last had left his battalion to die at the hands and rifles of the Tuareg and bailed, Rick’s yardstick for rating officers had been pretty damn long.

Then he stopped in his tracks as a thought tapped him on the shoulder and wouldn’t leave.

“Did you?”

“A few.”

The reply was automatic, the voice flat. That was probably all he would get this time, and then only because Jonathan had been too frazzled to evade the question.

The longest Rick had heard his brother-in-law talk about the war had been on the first Armistice Day they’d spent in England, a couple of years after his and Evy’s wedding. Jonathan was always a little bit quiet on November 11th, but Rick had put it down to general atmosphere, usually more sombre than usual for the British no matter where they were. Rick himself had been a kid of fifteen in 1914, still in that Cairo orphanage, and by the time the Armistice had rolled in, he’d been raising merry hell with Izzy all over North Africa. His own taste of war had come three years later, when he had joined the Legion.

Jonathan was usually a pretty cheerful drunk until he keeled over, so finding him quiet and subdued while absolutely loaded that night had been a surprise, to say the least.

“_Yeah, you’re not driving home tonight_,” Rick had said, and hailed a taxi. Evy had insisted Jonathan slept at their house that night, and he was beginning to see why.

Jonathan nodded solemnly. He was about as coordinated as a loose-jointed puppet, long-limbed and awkward, but hardly even slurred his words.

“_I should say not. Believe it or not, I actually want to live to see tomorrow morning._”

“_You’ll be dead to the world tomorrow morning, Jonathan._”

He gave Rick a broad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “_Do you know, I rather hope so._”

Rick couldn’t help giving him a funny look.

Once the both of them were ensconced in a taxi, Rick said conversationally, “_Y’know, the last time I saw you get _that_ shit-faced was at Hamunaptra, after the Medjai attack. What’s today to you?_”

Jonathan blinked owlishly, and said, much too loud, “_Why, it’s – it’s the end of the end of the world! You see,_” he added more quietly, squinting as though trying to focus on one O’Connell instead of several, “_we all went home to. Er. To celebrate not having wiped each other out, presumably. They gave medals to the dead, and they even gave _me_ a medal for not being dead._” He blinked again, and the lost, haunted expression in his eyes was suddenly very familiar to Rick. “_Fat lot of good that did the dead._”

Well, that certainly explained some things. Rick had rarely found himself so wrong-footed before. Of all the things to have in common with Jonathan Carnahan, their being both combat veterans would _not_ have made the shortlist.

When the taxi had dropped them off at the house, Rick had hauled Jonathan’s arm over his shoulder and asked, “_So what did you do, during the war?_”

“_This and that. I was a sniper with the Royal Fusiliers._” Jonathan shrugged, or attempted to. “_Tried not to die, mostly. But that’s not a conversation I care to have while I’m sober._”

Rick’s jaw dropped open. Then he couldn’t help a wry smile.

“_Well, you’re not exactly sober now, are you?_”

Jonathan stared at him earnestly, almost gravely.

“_I’ll never be drunk enough for _that_ conversation, old boy._”

And he had passed out, leaving Rick with a lot to think about and a limp brother-in-law to drag up the stairs.

He had brought it up with Evelyn, after. They had ended up talking all night, he about his Chicago childhood, then Cairo and the Legion, she about her small family and growing up between England and Egypt. By the time dawn peeked through the windows, he and his wife were in each other’s arms, drowsy and all talked out, and he realised he’d do it all over again if it still meant meeting Evy in that dingy prison.

So maybe the talking did help. Shame talking to anyone other than Evy was harder than pulling a tooth. That was another thing he had in common with Jonathan.

Rick let a few dozen seconds pass in silence, then said, looking straight ahead into the gloom to make up for the sincerity in his voice, “I’m, uh. I’m sorry about Ferguson.”

Jonathan didn’t say anything. When Rick ventured a glance his way, he caught a look of mild surprise in the midst of everything else on badly-hidden display on Jonathan’s face. Followed by a slight nod, and more silence.

Rick quashed the urge to shake his head. The _one_ time he actually tried to get Jonathan to talk instead of shut up was the time he chose to clam up. He must be really bad at this. Come to think of it, they probably both were.

He was pondering whether to make another attempt when he spotted the hieroglyphs on the wall.

‘_This way to the Scorpion King_’.

Which meant they were close.

Rick gestured to the wall and brought a finger to his lips, then jerked his head toward the corridor on the right. Jonathan nodded, his eyes bright in the dark. The gun he had said came from the ill-fated agents which Rick had spotted in his belt was back in his hand.

Clearly they had not run through their stock of miracles yet, because they didn’t encounter a single one of Baine’s cronies until they were on the threshold of the room Hamilton’s body had drifted into earlier.

Once he was certain nobody had spotted the two of them, Rick allowed himself a small, sharp exhale as he peered once more into the one chamber he wanted to be the farthest away from.

Charles Hamilton – or the husk that bore his name – was still hovering a foot in the air in front of the wall opposite behind a small crowd of his agents. The light shining out of his eyes and mouth was the only clear indication of his presence. Above him, ridiculously large and high, was a gong, heavily-decorated with bas-reliefs picturing both jackals and scorpions. Rick did not like to think who, or what, was supposed to bang it. Nothing human-sized could ever reach the thing.

Around their boss, glancing uneasily at him and the jungle around them, stood a tight-knit group of agents, weapons drawn. The only one who didn’t look nervous was Baine, who scrutinised the chamber with narrowed eyes. His back was to his boss, and his entire body seemed watchful, like a predator’s on the prowl.

He had nothing of the prey about him. The pygmy mummies must be keeping clear of the room.

Beside Rick, Jonathan also squinted at the room, his face pale.

“Wish I still had that bloody sceptre now,” he muttered.

“Wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. We’d still need a clear shot.” Rick studied the group massed at the foot of the wall, trying to get a sense of where Hamilton was between all the shifting bodies. “And we’re not likely to get it if they don’t move. At least the Scorpion King didn’t have flunkies.”

Jonathan looked thoughtful.

“You don’t think a diversion –?”

“Nah. They’d just get even closer to protect him. See the way Baine keeps looking back? He’s checking they’re staying in place. It’d probably take the whole pyramid coming down on them to get them to move.”

“Wouldn’t want _that_ to happen,” mumbled Jonathan. Then he grabbed Rick’s arm. “But what if something else came down?”

He gestured toward the wall with his other hand. Rick followed his eyes to the big gong.

It was hanging from four clasps, two above and two below, fastened into the wall with chains that looked way too slight to be holding so much weight. Rick scrutinised the gong, Hamilton, and the volumes of everything.

“It could work,” he finally said, slowly. “That thing sure could do a lot of damage. Wouldn’t necessarily kill him, though.”

“Tom…” Jonathan swallowed. “Tom did say the connection to Anubis needed both body and mind to work. Maybe we’d just need him unconscious.”

“That’s one ‘maybe’ too many.”

“Perhaps, but we don’t have much else, now, do we?”

Rick silently conceded the point, and took both his guns to determine which was likely to be more efficient. “If this goes right,” he said in a low voice as Jonathan examined his own gun, “things might get a little crazy. Like ‘oasis getting sucked into the pyramid’ crazy.”

“I expect no less from this little adventure of ours,” said Jonathan grimly. “It’s already looking to be that sort of day anyway.”

“Yeah, well. If things go wrong, you just run like hell, okay? Don’t look back. Just run straight to the top of that damn pyramid and get to safety.”

Jonathan’s eyes bugged out. “You’re telling _me_ to run!? Do you really think I need any sort of encouragement for that?”

“I do, actually.” Rick fixed him with a level gaze. “Sure, you tend to freak out, and you yell a lot, and you get startled, and your first instinct is to run away. Big deal. You know what I’ve noticed since I met you and Evy? Every time she ran into danger, you were never far behind. Same goes for Alex, and even me. So I’m telling you, if for some reason we get separated, don’t worry about me and just _go_.”

Jonathan stared at him for a while, slanted eyes almost round. Then his face relaxed.

“You know, Rick, years ago when I first met you, I thought you were a stupid cowboy with all the emotional capacity of a brick.”

Rick wondered why the phrasing sounded so familiar for all of two seconds, and snorted when it came back to him. _Turnabout is fair play, I guess_. “Okay. Figures. So that means you changed your mind since then, huh?”

Jonathan’s small crooked smile became a full-blown, genuine grin. His eyes twinkled.

“Oh, rather.”

Rick shook his head with a chuckle as he checked the clip of his gun. Not for the first time, it struck him that he really could have done worse for a brother-in-law.

He looked up again and cocked his gun. The sound was a stark reminder of both their situation and the stakes. The two men exchanged looks.

“You take the one on the top left,” said Rick, “I’ll take the one on the top right.”

Jonathan nodded soberly, and aimed. So did Rick.

“On the count of three. And I mean _on_ three, not after three.”

Rick took a deep breath.

“One.”

The chains looked flimsy, but the distance was consequent. If they didn’t succeed in taking down the gong on the first try, their cover would be blown and they would probably get shot up all to hell.

“Two.”

Rick chased every intruding thought from his mind and focused on the small target. On his left, he heard Jonathan let out a long, steady breath.

“Three.”

Both guns fired, so close it was almost one gunshot. Both top chains shattered at once; gravity did the rest. The big gong – silently, slowly, but picking up speed as it fell – tipped over in an almost graceful ninety-degree tilt, directly on top of Hamilton and his cronies.

The agents had all of one or two seconds to react to the gunshots before they spotted the danger from above. There was screaming, scrambling, people pushing and trampling and helping other people up – utter chaos. Finally, the gong came down with a mighty crash and a warped toll that was almost funereal, like a bell out of tune.

It did not lie flat on the floor. Rick searched Hamilton amidst the men still standing and didn’t find him.

For an awful moment, he thought this was it. That they hadn’t made any difference, that Anubis’ Army was still up there, slaughtering their way through the desert, set to take over the Earth like a flood of death. In the silence, Baine’s voice cut through the shock like a knife through paper, yelling, “They’re here! Find them and kill them! And get this thing off him!”

Rick was wondering what to do when the world flickered. A wave of dark nausea washed through him for a second, as though something had emptied his guts and filled them with lead, and he saw only darkness. His vision came back with a jolt, driving out the unpleasant sensation, and hope flared up in his heart as he recognised what had happened.

The Army of Anubis had gone back to its metaphorical box, as quickly as it had been summoned.

Then there was another crash, followed by a low rumbling.

A fine rain of dust and ground gold fell from above on Jonathan and him. In the centre of the chamber, the agents, less lucky, had to dodge the occasional block or stalactite the quake was dislodging from the ceiling. Some stood trembling, struck dumb and still with terror; some turned tail and fled; some had their guns out and shouted around, mostly at Baine, for orders.

“Time to go,” said Rick sharply.

He never knew exactly how it happened. Maybe falling debris caught Baine’s attention; maybe he had somehow managed to identify where the gunshots came from; maybe it was just bad luck that he happened to look that way at that precise moment. As Rick turned to run, his eyes met Baine’s, whose entire face contorted into an expression of pure rage.

“THERE!”

A dozen guns were trained on him and Jonathan in the blink of an eye.

Both men fired indiscriminately into the group of agents for cover. Then they bolted into the passageway they had come from, bullets whizzing past their ears and smashing into the walls around them.

* * *

Exhaustion weighed down Ardeth’s arms as he lifted his sword yet again and sliced through sinew, bone and sand. The Warriors kept on coming, and coming, as endless as the dunes they had sprung up from. There was no false joy this time, no test of their strength; they had unleashed what looked like the full might of their forces, and the Medjai, outnumbered two to one, were only trying to stay alive.

His mouth dry, lead in his chest, bleeding from a handful of shallow cuts on his torso and shoulders, Ardeth was, nonetheless, still standing. The same could not be said for a number of men and women. It was impossible, in the rage of battle, to distinguish between the wounded and the dead. The jackals, honourless, remorseless, ruthlessly stabbed at corpses and living wounded alike.

Ardeth had lost his scimitar what felt like hours ago and had picked up a corpse’s. He briefly froze as his back bumped into something, and relaxed – oh so slightly – as he realised the something was Aziz, still dour-faced and still fighting. He was bleeding from a forehead wound along the hairline, but his grip on his sword was strong, and his back was warm against Ardeth’s.

“If this keeps up,” he heard Aziz shout over the din of battle, “they’ll wipe us out to the last man!”

Ardeth didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say to that.

Faith was something you had or had not, and it could get tested. His faith in his friends and allies had never been broken before, though it had wavered sometimes. It was wavering now, a little, but he kept resisting. That faith whispered Rick O’Connell was still alive, and Ardeth knew, from over a decade of knowing the man, that while he breathed, he fought. Anyway, if he and his family failed, if they died trying to stop the apocalypse, then all Ardeth could do was keep fighting. It might not be enough, but then again it just might.

Just as he shoved the darkness from his heart for the hundredth time that night, he found a Warrior of Anubis towering over him and Aziz, sword in hand, looking for all the world like it would enjoy its bloody victory.

Ardeth raised his scimitar with the very last of his strength and prayed.

The second the swords touched, the jackal soldier’s khopesh burst into dark sand. The Warrior only had a second to look shocked before it, too, shattered.

“_Alhamdulillah1_,” he heard Aziz breathe beside him.

Around them, the battlefield was chaos stilled. In the faint blue-grey light of dawn, the men and women of the Medjai stared, astonished, as the Army of Anubis stopped fighting and fell apart where it stood. The dark sand mingled with the blood on the cool, light sand beneath their feet. Ancient weapons disappeared, fierce opponents vanished, leaving behind death and grief, but also new hope and a dawning wonder at having survived after all, against such odds.

A cry of joy rose through the ranks, and Ardeth bowed his head, murmuring a prayer of gratitude while hands and scimitars were raised in jubilation. He lifted his eyes again to look at his people, immeasurably proud of these men and women who had taken up the sword to defend humanity. They were not all of them warriors in the strictest sense of the word, and yet they had fought, they had lived and died, and they had won.

Today would be a day for mourning the dead and making sure the wounded didn’t join them. But in the minutes until sunrise, Ardeth Bay closed his eyes and let the painful, exhausted, wonderful sensations of life wash over him.

* * *

Alex had rarely been as elated and terrified at the same time as he was now, standing on a box on tip-toes to reach the handle that let cold air into the balloon. Cold air was heavier, he had reminded himself, so when he let go of the handle the valves closed and the air got warmer, pulling the dirigible higher. He had been turning the dirigible into an elevator for hours with that particular handle.

The sky was growing lighter, from a deep cobalt to a lighter blue-grey with a faint pink line in the east. There wasn’t enough light to see by properly yet, so trying to peek at the ground below was pretty much useless, but the sounds of the fight – the loudest shrieks, the mightiest roars – still reached him.

How he wished his dad were here. Or his mum. Or his uncle – sometimes Uncle Jon didn’t make a very good grownup, Alex knew, but at least he tried. Or Ardeth, or Izzy. Any darn adult would be smashing to have around. They could take charge and he could let go of the fricking controls. Maybe even get a hug. Declaring himself too old for mushy stuff like that was all well and good when he was safe in his house, in school, or at least back in England, but the worry accumulated in his heart over the past few days had got ten times worse during the night, and he was more than ready to throw all dignity to the wind and run into the arms of the first family member he could find.

It was cold, high up in the air like that, and Alex shivered, goosebumps all over his arms. His shirt which had been drenched in sweat had mostly dried up by now and felt stiff and not nearly warm enough.

Alex was getting ready to let go of the handle once more when he heard new noises.

“What the heck?” he murmured when he registered what they were.

It wasn’t screams, it wasn’t roars, it was an explosion of joy. People were shouting, laughing, ululating. The unexpected sounds went straight to Alex’s heart and made it skip a beat, then start it up again, the beating ten times louder.

The awful night was over, the soldiers of death were gone, people were still alive, and he was safe.

He pulled on the handle with renewed enthusiasm and grinned as the dirigible accelerated its descent slightly.

Now, he thought, he could afford to be proud.

As Dee floated down with only a few bumps, he became aware that the people on the ground had stopped celebrating so loudly. The cheers stopped, the voices died down. Puzzled, and not just a little concerned, he jammed the handle and ran to bend over the rail.

He could make out people, either wearing the dark robes of the Medjai or the dark suits of the bad guys Mum had said were secret agents – not that he could tell from above – converging towards the top of the pyramid, from which other people were emerging at a run. They joined the people on the ground and Alex lost track of them immediately, but they weren’t his main concern. What was his main concern was the pyramid itself and the low but powerful rumble he could hear even high up in the air.

Desperately, he scanned the ground for his mum, or his dad’s brown suit, or his uncle’s cream-coloured jacket. Neither were in sight.

“C’mon,” he kept mumbling, still peering hard at the ground, “Mum, Dad, Uncle Jon, c’mon, get _out_ –”

Another minute, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran back to the controls to take off the jammer and pull on the handle with all his might.

Izzy had seemed to appear out of the blue to save them when the pyramid collapsed.

Alex would just have to make damn sure he would, too.

* * *

1Literally “praise be to God”, “Thank God”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A casbah in North Africa is a fortress, sometimes a garrison. Which would make Evy’s lines in TM (“You stole [the box] from a drunk at the local casbah!?”) something of a puzzle, because you’d think the best place to pick unsuspecting sloshed Americans’ pockets would be a bar, not a fort… (Personally, I like to go with the novelization and think ‘the Sultan’s Casbah’ is a bar.)
> 
> Do you have headcanons that sneak into your brain through the back door, settle comfortably, and then turn into The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave? I had never even entertained the idea that Jonathan (like almost all Englishmen of his generation) had had to go through the giant meat grinder of World War One at some point, until a couple of years ago I happened on a Tumblr post where someone commented “Jonathan, like Phryne Fisher, clearly hasn’t taken anything seriously since 1918.” And it felt like a shovel in the face. I’d wanted to go back to this story and revise it for ages, particularly rewrite Hamilton’s exposition in chapter 9, but in hindsight this headcanon was pivotal in the sudden resurrection of this fic. Hopefully the characterisation is better for it instead of ruined. I’ll let you be the judge.


	19. Run

Evelyn wasn’t used to feeling claustrophobic in a pyramid. She had entered dozens of temples and mastabas, opened tombs and sarcophagi, and never felt so much pressure, such a sensation of being boxed-in. It must have to do with the jungle, she thought. The tombs she was used to were dry and dusty, but the temperature was more or less constant. Here, she was reminded of the Oasis of Ahm Shere after sunset: hot, humid, stifling. Unlike the desert, the canopy had kept the day’s heat inside and trapped moisture. The fact that the jungle was shut inside the pyramid now made the suffocating feeling even worse.

There was no conceivable way to follow the sound after the explosion, although she had an inkling Rick and Jonathan could not be far from it, without necessarily being the cause. Her mission and her priority was to find Hamilton first, she kept reminding herself, and her husband and brother second.

The encounter with the pygmy mummies seemed to have spooked Izzy, but only insofar as he looked tense. Sweat was beading down the side of his face, whether due to the oppressive heat or the knowledge that death might lurk somewhere among the big fronds and the shrubs. She didn’t blame him. Her palms were slick with sweat, and she had to wipe them on her trousers from time to time.

Between the heat and the promise of danger, the tension was so high it was almost a relief to hear screams and gunshots again.

The hapless men in the next chamber were discharging weapon after weapon, but as Evelyn saw when she came out of the corridor at a run, they were outclassed and outnumbered. The pygmy mummies were as relentless as they were ferocious, and they were in much greater numbers than what they had faced earlier. What was worse, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were toying with their prey and would soon enough get bored of the game.

No matter how quickly she and Izzy fired, reloaded, and fired again, it was never enough, and soon the rescue turned into covering for a hasty retreat. Fortunately, the corridor they had come in was narrow, forcing the creatures into a bottleneck; the humans all piled up in the previous chamber behind the walls on either side, dodging deadly spears and poison darts and picking off the little beasts one at a time.

“We need to close this corridor!” yelled one of the agents. “Who has dynamite?”

Evelyn almost protested. This was the quickest route to the heart of the pyramid, the former lair of the Scorpion King, and any other way would take much longer to reach it. However, as a spear narrowly missed the side of her head, she had to admit that way was impracticable. Nobody would survive long down there.

One of the men rummaged in his rucksack, lit an ingot of dynamite, and threw it into the swarming, hissing horde.

“Take cover!”

Evelyn clamped her hands on her ears and screwed her eyes shut.

The blast, amplified by the small space of the corridor, sent enormous blocks of stone and metal flying as though they were made of paper and a giant cloud of dust. When she opened her eyes, she first spotted the heap of rubble that effectively plugged the corridor, and, on the other side of the archway, the surviving agents. The dust the explosion had blown over them coated one side of their suit as they hunkered down next to the wall, making their clothes and their faces look strangely two-tone.

Then, to her horror, there was a small snarling sound somewhere in the dust.

One of the pygmy mummies had made it through before the blast.

Evelyn raised her gun.

The creature lifted its spear.

A shadow fell, stealing her breath and turning her stomach. It scurried away down the destroyed corridor as fast as it had come, leaving everyone dazed and confused – including, it seemed, the pygmy mummy, which had gone still, spear still held above its head.

Evelyn aimed again, but there was no need. The creature stiffened, an astonished look on its decaying face, and crumbled into dust.

The whole room let out a collective sigh of relief.

“What… what _were_ those things?” an agent asked, his voice trembling.

“Apart from one of the reasons you should never have come here in the first place?” said Izzy scathingly, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. It only smudged the mingled dust and sweat there. “Probably guardians meant to keep dumb twats like you lot away from evil places like that damn pyramid!”

Evelyn had nothing to add to Izzy’s accurate, if rather rude, answer. She let her arms come down and her shoulders slump, her chest heaving, shivering slightly from reaction. Her eyes slid closed.

Anubis’ Army had been sent back to the underworld. It was over.

Her mission had failed, but in the end it did not matter. All that did matter was that the world was safe again, from supernatural threats, at least. The jackal-headed soldiers were gone.

They had won.

All that remained to do now was finding Rick and Jonathan, getting back to Alex, and checking on Ardeth and his people.

Evelyn’s eyes snapped open. It couldn’t possibly be that easy, could it?

The next second proved her right as the whole pyramid started to shake, slowly and slightly at first, then harder and harder, until she had to lean on the wall for support.

The agents looked at each other, and ran towards the chamber entrance, one or two barely taking the time to hastily thank her and Izzy for their help.

“Yeah, yeah, right,” Izzy called after them with a derisive gesture. “We only just saved your bloody lives, that’s all! Ungrateful bastards. C’mon,” he added urgently, turning to Evelyn, “they got the right idea. We need to get the hell out, now.”

“But…” Evelyn knew she ought to run, knew there was nothing she could do except try to stay alive, but her husband and her brother were still somewhere in there. To come so far into the pyramid and still leave them to their fate was sheer torture.

Izzy looked more serious than she had ever seen him.

“I know. But O’Connell has got out of more sticky situations and your brother looks wily enough. They’ll make it out. And do you think they’ll be fine if anything happens to you down here?”

The memory flashed through her mind like fire. Rick kneeling over her, morning sunlight in his hair and tears in his eyes, lost in a sea of grief he was close to drowning in.

She could not let her family go through that again. Not if she could help it, not if there was even the slightest chance of survival.

Evelyn nodded, and she and Izzy darted for the exit amidst the dust and the falling rubble.

* * *

Despite what Rick had told Jonathan, he had absolutely no intention of letting them get separated. The two of them had gone – okay, gotten dragged – into that pyramid, the two of them would get out, period.

Sure, they had to dodge bullets and duck random debris, but they _would_ get out.

Baine was still after them, and a number of flunkies with him. Rick hadn’t looked back to find out how many.

The guy must _really_ hate them, he thought as he ran, to come after them like that, while the world – well, only the pyramid, thankfully – crashed down on and around them. You’d think he would have more pressing concerns, like his men, or at least saving his own skin. But no, he chose to hound them, as though they had done him personal harm and not saved the world by making a gong fall on a megalomaniac.

That had to be the most ridiculous way to save the world yet. Rick still couldn’t believe it had worked.

He had hated Imhotep, the first time. Oh, how he had hated the mummy when Evy had walked away from him and toward the prospect of death in order to save their lives. Rick O’Connell had realised, at that moment, that he had never truly loathed anyone before. And strangely, as he watched a mortally-wounded Imhotep stumble into that dark goo, any semblance of humanity being quickly stripped away, it had been tempting to feel sorry for the guy, just for a second.

The second time… When Anck-su-namun had stabbed Evy, Imhotep barely taking the time to look smug about it, as though snuffing the life of the most incredible woman Rick had known was nothing, an afterthought – _then_ Rick had truly known what hate felt like. It had been burning, all-consuming, and only Evy’s unhoped-for return had extinguished it enough that he allowed himself the luxury of almost feeling sorry for Imhotep, at the very end. Watching an enemy get pulled out of the fire by the love of his life and then having your own girlfriend bail on you at the last moment had to sting. He was pretty sure there had been tears in the poor chump’s eyes before he let go of that ledge. Who knew a three thousand years old abomination could cry.

In hindsight, Imhotep had been… not exactly a worthy opponent, because a worthy opponent came at the one they had a beef against, not their family; but he hadn’t really been entirely devoid of honour. And while honour was not usually an important part of Rick’s vocabulary, he believed in fighting fair and square – if the situation allowed. Hence why he had zero qualms in not taking Baine – or Hamilton – one on one and sneaking around to beat them instead. Neither were anything close to worthy or honourable. When the deck was stacked against him, he just made sure there were other ways to come out on top.

In the present circumstances, the only way to come out on top was to literally go to the top, which meant running up endless stairways and sloping corridors. At some point, collapsing pyramid or not, those stairways and slopes took their toll and they were forced to stop, their lungs burning and their legs turned to liquid.

“How much… farther…?” gasped Jonathan, looking like he was about to dissolve into the stone tiles. Rick had to gulp air a few times before he was able to answer.

“Dunno, but… not that far.” _Man, I _hope_ it’s not far_. “We really need to go, now.”

“In… a minute…”

“We may not _have_ a minute, Jonathan!”

But Jonathan was not listening to him. He had been staring at something near the wall; now he lurched closer and pushed a frond aside, eyes wide.

“Good _Lord_,” he breathed.

For a second, Rick could only share the sentiment. It looked like a cross between a magpie’s nest and a pirate cache, a stash of various gold trinkets and shiny things, haphazardly thrown in a heap. A row of spears had been erected behind it, like a hedge, a small shrunken head planted on every other spike.

Amidst the urgency and the exhaustion, Rick wondered, in the back of his brain, how come they had seen neither head nor tail of the pygmy mummies since they had taken down Hamilton.

Jonathan seemed to have no such questions, and he hastily plunged both hands into the stash and stuffed the contents into his pockets. Just as Rick thought he would have to physically haul him from the treasure and out of the pyramid, Jonathan turned a triumphant grin to him.

“No bloody way I’m coming home empty-handed this time!”

“How many times do I gotta tell you it’s not worth risking your life, you idiot?” Rick yelled as a chunk of ceiling missed him by inches and they hugged the walls to the exit.

“As many as it takes, old boy!”

Just as they reached the corridor, a bullet hit the doorway two inches from Rick’s head, leaving a chink in the dark gold. A second’s glance behind told him Baine had mostly caught up with them.

“Save your breath to run!” he shouted at his brother-in-law, and ran like he had rarely run before.

The necessary respite had done him good, but not nearly enough. If they hadn’t been running through a slowly collapsing pyramid, Rick had no doubt Baine or one of his men would have put a bullet in their brains right there and then. But if the floor shook, debris fell from everywhere, and dust and shredded leaves almost blinded them, then the same thing applied to the agents behind them. Rick ran for his life, his chest on fire, bullets and rubble flying around him, expecting to get hit any second. When his heart seemed to burst in his chest, he kept running. When Jonathan stumbled and almost pitched forward, he reached behind and grabbed him by the collar to help him keep up. When his legs threatened to give out he still ran some more.

His entire body was screaming. There was only one thought spinning in his mind, over and over, as steady as a heartbeat.

_Get out get out get _out_ –_

And then – suddenly – there was light at the end of the corridor. Real, glorious light, beckoning them forward, the possibility of freedom and safety.

The sight lent him a speed and breath he didn’t know he still had.

Somehow, Rick accelerated.

* * *

“THERE!” Evelyn shouted over the noise, grabbing Izzy’s arm. “There’s the way out!”

Finally, the exit. They had found the way they had come in. The last few metres were arduous, between the slope of the stairs, the tremors, and the leaves and ferns whipping at them as they ran. They burst into the open air and half tumbled down the enormous stones of the outer pyramid, and Evelyn felt the sweet, cool caress of a desert sunrise on her face. The sensation was so familiar and unexpected after the long, long night that she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She opened her eyes again quickly when she heard Izzy gasp.

The smell of dying fires struck her before anything else. The whole camp was in shambles, the tents either taken apart or burnt, the fabric trampled on the ground. Around the pyramid entrance stood a handful of Medjai with guns and scimitars, all of them bearing tell-tale signs of a fierce battle.

There was no trace of the dirigible. Evelyn’s heart seized up in her chest. Where was Alex?

Izzy slowly raised his hands in surrender, finger distinctly off the trigger of his gun.

“Lower your hands, Izzy,” Evelyn said impatiently, before calling out, louder, “_Alex!_ Has anyone seen my son? Or my husband and my brother?”

“Evelyn!” The voice was familiar. Evelyn looked to her right to see Atifa push past between two warriors. “Lower your weapons, now,” she said in Arabic to her men. “They’re friends. Evelyn, your husband and brother aren’t here, but your son is safe. Look.”

She pointed up, and Evelyn and Izzy followed her gesture. There was the dirigible, a couple of dozen yards in the air, making a hiccuping descent.

Evelyn reached for a block of stone for support, her gaze still upwards. She was still worried sick about Rick and Jonathan, but at least Alex was safe and sound. _Oh, thank goodness_.

“What happened?” she asked as Izzy stared at his beloved Dee, gaping.

Atifa looked battered and bruised, and grim-faced. “A detachment of the Army of Anubis came this way,” she said in English. Izzy tore his eyes from his dirigible to stare at her – then at the balloon again – in horror. “We did our best to hold them off. The white prisoners even fought by our side. They did well, considering.”

“How many dead?” asked Evelyn, dreading the answer.

“About a third of our men and half the prisoners. The Army went back to the sands some time ago. Did you –?”

Evelyn shook her head. “No, I had nothing to do with it. We didn’t even see Hamilton. We were too late to stop him before he released Anubis’ Army, and we were too late to stop him after.” She drew a ragged breath. “I failed my mission.”

“I reckon you would have kicked his arse if it hadn’t been for those nasty critters,” Izzy pointed out, making Atifa look at him curiously.

“You saw the guardians of Ahm Shere and lived?”

“They were hunting down a few of Hamilton’s men. I think they were all sent back to the Underworld when the Army of Anubis was. Did the men get out?”

“Yes. That’s why my orders were to intercept anyone who got out of the pyramid. We’ve been collecting prisoners since the battle ended.”

“Good,” said Evelyn with a firm nod. “They need to be held accountable for their actions. If –”

“Watch out!” shouted Izzy, pushing the two women away from the foot of the pyramid.

The next second, the big dirigible all but crashed into the sand and the bottom row of the stone blocks. When the dust settled and the noise died down, Evelyn looked up to see a rope ladder be thrown down and a small blond head pop up from the rail.

“Mum!”

“Alex!”

She hastily saluted Atifa and climbed aboard as fast as her legs allowed. She had barely got down from the ladder when her son barrelled into her. She fell to her knees and hugged him as tight as she could, breathless, eyes screwed shut, bursting with love.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

A thud and a few incoherent sounds behind her told her that Izzy had climbed up as well.

“How – what did – _my dirigible!_”

“I had to,” Alex piped up, breaking away from the hug. He looked halfway between exhilarated and nervous. “The Army of Anubis were coming this way, I had to, otherwise they would’ve just – I don’t know, but I didn’t want them to, so I tried to get Dee to go up, I mean, first I couldn’t remember – but then I thought, positive buoyancy! And then I switched the whatsit on to fire up the whole thing –”

Her brave, clever boy. He never ceased to amaze her, did he.

“It’s all right,” said Evelyn. She was smiling so wide it almost hurt. “It’s all right, you’re here, you’re safe, that’s all that matters. And,” she added with something of a wicked smile behind her, “I’m sure Mr Izzy will thank you for taking such good care of his dirigible.”

Izzy, who was bent over the rail trying to assess the damage done by the somewhat… rough landing, threw them a dirty look over his shoulder. The next second, surprisingly, he softened.

“You did good, kid,” he said, as though reluctantly. “Could’ve been gentler, but… Yeah, that was right clever of you.”

Alex beamed at the praise. Then Izzy’s eyes went round.

“My moorings! What –”

“Oh, yeah, I had to, er, cut those in a hurry.” Alex actually sounded sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Look at the state of the – oh, bloody Christ on a bike, _the balloon!_”

Evelyn was on the verge of calling him out for his language, but Izzy took off at a run towards the wheelhouse. When she bent over the rail and looked up, the dirigible’s balloon had started sagging dangerously. Trusting the pilot to restore the proper state of things, she turned back to her son, who was staring up with a look his mother knew only too well. That look ran the gamut between ‘what just happened’ and ‘um, did _I_ do that’, and seemed to run in the family.

“Oops,” Alex said. “I kinda forgot to take the jammer off the handle.”

Evelyn had no idea what that meant, but somehow she almost burst out laughing. She only just managed to turn the mounting giggles into a grin and reached for him again. To her surprise, he happily complied and returned her embrace with all the strength of his arms.

“I take it the child is safe?” came a voice from the ground. Evelyn, still smiling widely, broke away from the hug and walked to the rail.

“Yes, he’s safe and sound, thank goodness.”

Atifa nodded. Some of the tension left her face. “Good.”

“Mum?” said Alex behind her. “Did you see Dad and Uncle Jon while you were down there?”

Evelyn’s smile slid abruptly.

“No, dear, I didn’t,” she said softly, running a gentle hand through his hair. “But I’m sure they –”

Someone cried, in Arabic, “More coming!” She only had time to go to the rail again before two men came sprinting out of the pyramid entrance directly towards the dirigible.

Alex let out a wordless cry of joy. Evelyn thought her heart was about to burst right through her ribcage.

The first to climb aboard turned out to be Jonathan. As soon as he reached the top of the rail, she threw her arms around him to help him on board, then tightened her grip into a bear hug, her hands clasped against his back. When he hugged her back, she could feel his body quiver, and only held him tighter.

“Jon,” she gasped, “oh, Jon, I thought –”

She broke away from the embrace, smiling giddily, and couldn’t resist the impulse to kiss his forehead. Jonathan looked too breathless to speak, still trembling and panting from their last run, but he gave her a small smile.

And then an exhausted voice said with a smile she could actually hear, “Hey, hon.”

Rick was sitting on the deck, chest heaving, as grimy and covered in dust as Jonathan was, smiling up at her. He had his arms around Alex, who was wrapped up around him like an octopus, as though two arms and a torso were just not enough for the kind of hug he needed.

Evelyn’s grin threatened to split her face in two.

She lay a hand on Jonathan’s arm and made sure he was propped up against the wall of the cabins before going over to her husband. Rick whispered something in Alex’s ear and ruffled his hair – and how she had missed this, missed the small affectionate touches between all of them. He stood up slowly, and while Alex ran to his uncle, Evelyn finally crossed the last yard and took her man into her arms to hold him close.

There was some kind of commotion from the ground, voices raised angrily, but she only had eyes and ears for Rick.

He had lost his jacket and smelled of sweat, grime, and the sap of exotic plants, but underneath his own scent was still there; there was a half-healed cut on his forehead as well as small bruises and scratches all over his body, but his hands were warm against her side and the back of her head. She clung to him with all her might, hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, drinking in the smell and feel of him, feeling the fear and worry of the past few days ebbing little by little.

“I missed you so much,” she whispered into his shirt. “I just… You… Oh, Rick, I missed you _so_ much.”

He made a small noise at the back of his throat and she felt his lips press against the side of her head. She broke away, taking his hands into hers. When she looked up, it was into a pair of intense blue eyes, misted over and glistening.

The kiss drew both of them in at the same time. When she came up for air, trembling with emotion, she marvelled at the way her husband looked at her, as though he couldn’t believe she was real. Not that she felt any different, of course. Having him in her arms like this, kissing him like this, after a week of fearing for his life, was like drinking from the purest spring after a week of wandering in the desert.

His breath trembled against her lips. She closed her eyes and basked in all the precious sensations she had missed so much for the past week.

“Evy, I…” She heard a sharp intake of breath, and opened her eyes. “Evy, you got hurt!”

“No,” she said, puzzled. “I didn’t –”

Rick was looking down in alarm; she followed his gaze to her hands, still entwined in his.

Her palms were covered in drying blood.

Fear rose into her like bile.

“Are _you_—?”

Rick shook his head.

“Then what…”

Instinctively, her head swivelled to the other two members of their family. Jonathan was where she had left him, braced against the wall of the cabins, while Alex regaled him with a spirited version of the adventure he’d had.

“So then I grabbed the axe to chop off the ropes, and the darn thing was so heavy I almost couldn’t – Uncle Jon? Uncle Jon, are you okay?”

Jonathan had gone utterly white. He blinked, a confused look on his face.

“Wha—”

Then his knees buckled and he abruptly slid down the wall, blood smeared where his back had been.

There was a considerable amount of blood.

“MUM! DAD!”

Her son’s scream pierced through the icy fog in Evelyn’s brain. She ran over and dropped in front of Jonathan while Rick strode over to Alex and picked him up.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when they were finally together again, safe again, not when the world had been saved once more… They were supposed to have so much time in front of them, a whole life of it…

“Jonathan,” she said in the most assertive voice she could muster, “Jonathan, look at me.”

He looked at her. Incredibly, after so many years, the voice still worked.

“Jon, please, stay with me. You’re going to be just fine, just… don’t close your eyes.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out except the sound of his shallow, whistling breathing. The sound pitted a shard of ice against her heart. What drove it in was the expression on her brother’s face. He looked flat out terrified.

The same terror drenched her entire body in ice. She had not felt this helpless in decades.

“HELP!” she screamed, turning away to the rail, to the wheelhouse, to anyone who would listen. “Somebody, please!”

Her eyes met Rick’s, just beside her. He had crouched down to her level, unable to hold Alex’s weight much longer; he still had their son in his arms, small head tucked against his chest, one large hand gently stroking the back of his neck. When he looked at her, there was unutterable sadness in his eyes.

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“No,” Evelyn whispered. She grabbed Jonathan’s hand, and with her other hand cupped the side of his face. “No, Jon, no – don’t go, don’t leave me, _please_, Jon, don’t –”

His hand tightened around hers. She could have sworn, later, that he tried to say something. She stared into his eyes, desperately ignoring the greyish tint of his skin, the blue tinge of his lips, willing him to stay a little longer still.

Jonathan could be lazy, absent-minded, and a bit of a ne’er-do-well, but he had always made an effort when she asked.

She was so focused on his face that she didn’t notice his hand had gone slack right away. He seemed to be staring into the distance, his expression still a mixture of fear and incomprehension; but his eyes, so blue, so lively, so ready to twinkle, were dull, the light faded out.

Evelyn opened her mouth, and his name died on her lips. The mind she had always prided herself on was an utter blank.

She was barely aware of Rick reaching out, and, with a gentleness he hadn’t had since Alex had been an infant, closing Jonathan’s eyes.


	20. Aftermaths

What struck Rick was the hush. It wasn’t exactly silence; more like cotton in his ears, muffling out the incoming sounds.

He had known, the second he had seen Jonathan slide down the wall, the second Alex had screamed, what was going to happen. He was too intimately familiar with the signs of encroaching death to ignore them: the sinister pallor, the laboured breathing, the inevitability of it all… and the helplessness of the living. When a distraught Evelyn had turned to him, calling for help, finding none, there had been no comfort he could give her. Life had slipped out of Jonathan too fast for anyone to do anything.

Against him, Alex made a keening noise and started to sob, quietly at first, then violently, his small frame racked with shudders. Rick cradled him in his arms and gently rocked him back and forth. Evelyn stared at her brother’s body, her eyes almost as empty as Jonathan’s had been before Rick had closed them.

Izzy ran out of the cabin just as Atifa scrambled up the ladder. Both jaws dropped open at the same time.

Nobody said anything. The thick silence seemed to swallow the words before they made their way out. Rick was almost grateful.

Apart from Alex weeping in his arms, the only movement he could feel and the only sound that reached his ears was the breeze, slowly growing warmer as the sun rose over Egypt. The moment seemed to stretch out, like a rubber band. And like a rubber band, Rick knew, you could only stretch that kind of moment for so long before it snapped.

A small part of him wanted to fall back, retreat to the nearest secure spot, and lick his wounds – all kinds of wounds – in peace. A big part of him, the part that was pure frazzled exhaustion, wanted the world to stop so he could sleep for a week. But the heart of him, the very core, looked at his unresponsive wife and the sobbing child in his arms, and said, _They need you right now, and they need you strong_.

He never actually _wanted_ to take charge. Somehow, though, that’s where he usually seemed to end up in the worst kinds of circumstances.

_You just got promoted…_

Rick let out a shuddering sigh, and freed an arm from Alex to put it around Evy.

“Evelyn. Honey.”

She let him turn her ever so slightly, her eyes still drawn to the body as though to a magnet.

“I’ll take care of him. Okay? I’ll stay with him.” He stroked her back, very gently, dropping his voice down to a murmur. “But I need you to take Alex. He can’t stay here.”

Their son’s name rekindled something in Evy’s eyes. She reached out, and Rick, once he had gently detached Alex’s hands, tight around his neck, poured the boy into her arms.

It was an achingly familiar move, perfected when Alex had been a toddler and prone to falling asleep on his parents’ lap after swearing up and down he wasn’t sleepy. He had done that a lot for about a year and a half. They had come home once, after a conference in London, to Jonathan fast asleep on the sofa with a two-year-old Alex sprawled over him like a starfish. Both babysitter and child had been equally hard to wake up.

The memory made Rick’s chest ache. He bit down on the pain and shoved it aside, to be dealt with later.

And he knew there _would_ be a later. No matter how numb he currently was.

He caught Izzy’s eyes over Evy’s shoulder. The pilot understood instantly.

“C’mon, Evelyn,” he said, gentler than Rick had ever heard him. He took Evy’s arm to support her as she rose, still holding Alex, and slowly escorted her inside the cabin. When they were gone, Rick tried, in vain, to swallow the lump in his throat. He turned back to Atifa, who stood by the rail, so still and silent it was easy to forget she was there.

“Do you have a, uh…” Damn, but that sentence was difficult. “Something we could use as a kinda shroud?”

Atifa nodded.

“Wait here,” she said in a low voice.

His eyes followed her down the ladder and into the ruined camp. He liked Atifa. She was stern, only a little less intense than Ardeth was on a bad day, but she was a strong, no-nonsense woman, and a good ally.

She came back with what looked like white linen sheets. Rick rose to his feet slowly, feeling every single muscle, tendon, and bone, and took it off her hands as she climbed over the rail.

“Thank you. Where –?”

“The white men’s tents and bedding. We have taken care of our dead since the sun rose.”

Rick hadn’t missed the battle damage as he ran out of the pyramid. It had only taken a second to recognise the signs. But he’d been so focused on getting out that he hadn’t let it sink in.

“I’m sorry about your men,” he said through whatever still obstructed his throat. “How many?”

Atifa looked just as hollow and worn as he felt.

“Thirty-two. Nine men, eight women, and fifteen Westerners who chose to fight the Army of Anubis with us. They all gave their lives so we could live.” She looked down at Jonathan, then back at him. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“He’s family, actually.”

Too late, Rick caught the present tense.

They were a family of three, now. Four, with Ardeth. He would have to get used to it.

God, he hated it already.

Atifa’s eyes softened slightly. Without another word, she spread the sheet on the deck, smoothing out the wrinkles, and moved to Jonathan’s side.

For just a half-second, Jonathan appeared to be sleeping. Rick _had_ seen him sleep that way, back in that basement they had been locked up in, sitting against a wall with his chin resting on his chest. The illusion was gone in an instant. No matter how the cliché went, a dead man’s body could not be mistaken for a live one. The difference was tiny, but staggering.

Rick picked up his brother-in-law’s corpse, cradling his head as gently as he had cradled Alex’s, and deposited him on the makeshift shroud. Before Atifa could close it, however, he stayed her hand.

When people died, the living often asked questions. It was part of what being alive meant. ‘Why’ and ‘how’ were generally the most frequent ones.

In this particular case, ‘why’ was moot – Jonathan hadn’t given his life, like the Medjai who had died weapons in hand, defending each other. It had been taken from him as they ran to safety, to family, to freedom. No, asking ‘why’ would be pointless. Rick was more interested in ‘how’. And, incidentally, in ‘who’.

He slowly turned the body on its side.

The bloodstain wasn’t that large, he noted with a strange detachment. Most of the bleeding had been internal. The origin was a small round hole between the shoulder blades, a little off to the right of the spine. The bullet hadn’t gone through. Maybe it would only have done minor damage if the effort of running hadn’t made it move around and nick an artery. Or maybe the wound would have been fatal anyway and he would have bled out, only slowly. There was no way to tell.

Rick gingerly laid the body back down on the sheet. That was the ‘how’ taken care of. Now for the ‘who’.

Fury gradually eroded the numbness, as slow and inexorable as the wind moving the sand dunes.

“The men who were behind us,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “Where are they?”

Atifa looked into his eyes, and understood perfectly.

“They are our prisoners,” she said firmly, “and they will not be touched.”

“I won’t need to touch him.” Whether Baine had fired the gun that had killed Jonathan or not, he was damn well responsible. And even though Rick would like nothing more than to pound him to a paste right now, a bullet to the head – or in the back – had a certain poetic irony to it. He’d been itching to deck the guy for days; now he just wanted to kill him.

But Atifa shook her head.

“The battle is over. They lost and they accepted their defeat. The honourable thing—”

“Honourable!?” he almost shouted. “The damn pyramid was falling apart around us, and instead of thinking of his own men that guy chose to shoot us _as we ran_. Where’s the honour in that?”

“O’Connell!” she snapped.

Through the haze of anger came a pinprick of annoyance. Why did everybody seem to call each other by their first names except him?

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Oh,” he growled, “I really am –”

“No you’re not,” she countered hotly, in Arabic this time. “Because if you were, you wouldn’t be thinking of darkening your soul with pointless vengeance while your brother’s corpse is still warm and your family is weeping just behind that door.”

As usual, she was just as intense, but less formal when she spoke Arabic. The language switch gave her words a weight and an impact they would have lacked in English. But maybe that was because his Arabic – a language he had spoken daily from thirteen to twenty years old – was just a little rusty.

He didn’t bother to correct her about the difference between brother and brother-in-law. After all this time, and everything they had been through together, Jonathan might as well have been blood.

This time he did remember to use the past tense.

“We set up camp a couple of hours’ ride to the south-east,” Atifa continued in the same language, more quietly. “Your wife and the pilot know the way. That’s where we’ve been sending the prisoners and the fallen. They deserve their families around them, and their families need to say goodbye. You and yours will be welcome there.”

Rick was still seething; his hands tightened into fists almost of their own accord, still itching to punch Baine into the ground. But he nodded wordlessly.

They worked in silence after that. When they were done, the body was neatly wrapped in white linen and easier to look at, somehow.

_Rather looks like something you’d find in a sarcophagus, doesn’t it, old boy?_ a familiar voice piped up in Rick’s head. Beneath the layers of grief and anger he felt a small spark of laughter. Jonathan probably _would_ make that joke if he could.

Rick bid Atifa goodbye and found Izzy at the helm, unusually sombre.

“O’Connell.”

“Hey, Izzy. Thanks for coming to the rescue.”

The pilot snorted. “Like I had any choice. Your kid picked the lock on my door and then your wife just blasted it with a shotgun. Hell of a family you got.”

“Yeah. Well, it just got smaller.”

Izzy opened his mouth and closed it wordlessly. Rick ran a hand over his face, too tired for sarcasm.

“…So, where to?” Izzy asked eventually in a would-be casual voice, making a show of fiddling with buttons and firing up the boiler.

“Apparently you know the way to the Medjai camp?”

“Yep. A whole load of tents pitched near a little oasis and lots and lots of scary people in black. Kids, too, if you can believe it.”

“That far?”

“Nah, about twenty minutes as Dee flies. Even with the damage your boy did to my dirigible we should be there in half an hour.”

Rick blinked. “Dee?”

“I gave my lady a name, O’Connell – got a problem with that?”

In other circumstances, Rick would have enjoyed ribbing Izzy. They had the kind of back-and-forth that could last for hours, back in the day; pretty entertaining, as pastimes went. Right now, though… Right now he had rarely wanted his wife and son in his arms so badly. If only to make sure they were still alive.

He replied with a vague gesture and made for the sleeping quarters, where Izzy had put up Evy and Alex.

Izzy had a big mouth and a tendency to put his foot in it, but he was smarter than people often gave him credit for. He threw a look at Rick over his shoulder and muttered, “Hey, O’Connell? Sorry about Carnahan.”

Rick tapped his shoulder in thanks and walked away.

The night had been hell. He had a feeling the day would be worse.

* * *

The night had been long. Ardeth had a feeling the day would be longer still.

He barely had time to see to his wounds once they came back to the camp. As High Commander, he had to oversee the aftermath of the battle just as he had the preparations. This meant making sure tents were pitched up for the wounded, seeing that families received their dead in private, and directing the flow of information about who lived, who needed treatment and what kind, and who would never come back. Fortunately, after a while he was able to delegate and let things run their course. After giving a few last orders, he left to look for his family.

He found Ineni in their tent, in the Eleventh Tribe section. To his absolute relief, she appeared unhurt. Sabni was asleep on her lap, and she sang softly as she braided Maira’s long dark hair, her hands almost the same colour in the dim light.

When Ardeth entered the tent, he only just had time to get down on one knee before his daughter, braiding forgotten, ploughed into him. Despite his injuries, and despite the exhaustion of almost an entire night of fighting, he took her into his arms and held her close.

Maira was eight; Sabni was three. Unlike her brother, his eldest had clear and vivid recollections of the last time the Medjai had gone out in force to fight Anubis’ Army.

He met Ineni’s eyes over the small dark head. They were shining.

“Allah be praised,” he breathed, softly in order to not wake his son. “I feared –”

“I know. So did I. The fighting was so fierce.” She gave him a smile, her teeth very white in her dark face. “But I heard that the Commander was on his feet, and I had a feeling you would eventually come here.”

“There’s no Commander in this tent. Only a husband and a father.” Ardeth carefully sat down, Maira still clutched to him, and kissed the crown of his wife’s head. “Are you hurt?”

“A nick to the back of the calf, on the right leg. I already treated it. I’ll just avoid walking today and limp a little for the next few weeks.” Her long, almond-shaped eyes meandered over what she could see of his body. “What about you?”

Ardeth shook his head. “A few scratches here and there. A small price to pay to keep the Army of Anubis at bay. Especially when we lost so many warriors. Even Maher’s men were attacked, right at the foot of the Pyramid.”

Ineni’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

“Yes. His message said he lost about a dozen people. Plus some of the Westerners who surrendered when they took the camp. Maher insisted the survivors be treated better than those who were still coming out from the Pyramid.”

“What happened to the Pyramid of Ahm Shere, Dad?” came Maira’s voice from against his chest, somewhat muffled by his robes. Ardeth gently ran a hand into her hair, now almost completely loose. It was dark and quiet inside the tent; the soft weight of his daughter against him and the warm shoulder of his wife against his own felt comfortable and familiar. For the umpteenth time since sunrise, he sent a prayer to Allah in gratitude.

“Bad people went inside to release the Army of Anubis, good people went inside to stop them. I’m guessing they must have been successful.” Maira absently played with the hem of his shirt, and he was glad he had taken the time to put on clothes that were not bloody and tattered. “When the Army disappeared, the Pyramid started collapsing, but some of the people had time to come out before it was destroyed.”

“What about Alex and his mother?” she asked. “And his dad and uncle? Did they come out?”

“I hope so, sweetheart. I haven’t heard from them yet.” Ardeth met his wife’s eyes again, and saw his own vague worry reflected there.

He was debating what to say and not say when Nuya, a young man who often worked as his aide, lifted the flap at the entrance of the tent and called softly, “Commander? Westerners are coming.”

“What kind of Westerners?” Ardeth asked cautiously. Nuya smiled.

“Ours. The balloon is landing between the Eighth and Ninth Tribe sections.”

Ardeth couldn’t help a grin, relieved. The world just would not be the same without Evelyn’s passion for knowledge, Rick’s calm strength, Jonathan’s wry humour, or Alex’s childlike enthusiasm. It might be quieter, and – as some people muttered sometimes – safer, but it would be colder, and definitely not as entertaining.

Ineni kissed his head near his ear. “Go, and give them my love,” she said, smiling. “And tell them that tea would be nice if they have the time.”

Ardeth gently pried Maira’s hands from around his torso and kissed her forehead, promising he would be back soon. Then he followed Nuya into the blinding mid-morning sun, forcing his face back into a serious expression.

When he saw the dirigible, though, and spotted the O’Connells walking down the gangway, the grin sneaked back on his face despite himself.

“My friends,” he began in English, delighted, “you—”

His voice trailed off.

Something was wrong.

Something was _very_ wrong.

Alex was clinging to his mother, hiccuping from time to time, his face blotchy. A few stray tears rolled on his cheeks he didn’t bother to wipe. Evelyn looked like brittle steel, pale and hollow-eyed. O’Connell walked behind her, shoulders slumped. His face, usually so expressive, was set in stone, with deep, hard lines.

Ardeth searched in vain for the fourth member of the little family until denial made way for a leaden resignation that would shortly, he knew, turn into sorrow.

“What happened?” he asked in a low voice when he reached them.

“Not now,” O’Connell replied, sounding – and looking – nothing short of exhausted. He still corrected himself. “I mean – I’m glad you’re okay, Ardeth, I really am. Just… Oh, man.” He ran a hand across his grimy face. His whole body was battered and dusty, and he appeared to be feeling every single bruise. “Do you have a tent or something, somewhere private? Evy doesn’t – she needs to stay with her brother a while, y’know? And Alex needs to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe, where he can rest.”

There was something heartbreaking about his subdued, halting voice. It also drove the point home, though the words themselves were never spoken.

Ardeth nodded, suddenly unspeakably weary. “If it’s all right with you and Evelyn, I think Ineni would be glad to look after him. She always says he’s very well-behaved.”

There was a flash of something on O’Connell’s face that might have been a smile in other circumstances.

“Your wife is a very kind woman.” He turned to Evelyn and Alex; after a few seconds’ quiet conversation, he said, “Yeah, that’d be good. Thank you.”

Thus Ardeth left Evelyn and O’Connell standing by the dirigible with the promise that he would be back shortly, and Alex followed him to his family’s tent.

“I am sorry,” he said quietly after a while, “about your uncle.”

Alex hiccuped and ran his sleeve across his eyes. Fresh tears immediately replaced the ones he’d wiped.

“He shouldn’t be d—dead,” he said in a strangled voice, eyes riveted to the ground. “It’s not… it’s not f—fair.”

“I know.”

“He got out. He and Dad g—got out, and he was fine, and then he… There was blood on the… He shouldn’t b—be dead.”

Ardeth tightened his hand around the boy’s, and wished there was something he could say.

Alex had fallen silent except for snuffles and hiccups by the time they reached the tent. Sabni was awake, and played with a wooden horse while his mother braided Maira’s hair. Ineni looked up from her work when they entered, first in curiosity, then in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as Ardeth made Alex sit on the cushions next to her. The boy barely reacted.

He sighed. “Jonathan’s dead.”

“_Tal-lāh_1,” she breathed. She’d been fond of the Englishman. He had made her laugh. He had made Ardeth laugh, too, come to think of it – and he had also saved his life. Not many people could attest to both.

Of all the friends he would have to bury tomorrow, Jonathan Carnahan had to be the most unlikely. He was rarely serious, sometimes a little ridiculous, and much too fond of earthly riches; but he was also the kind of man who loved his family so much he repeatedly followed them into the worst situations no matter how scared he was.

“What happened?” Ineni asked in Arabic, reaching to Alex, tentatively at first, then cradling him like she had cradled Sabni. Alex clung to her, eyes closed, gulping.

“I don’t know yet.” His eyes went over to Maira, standing protectively near her little brother, who was staring at Alex with wide eyes. “Do you mind looking after him for a little while? His parents and I need to take care of the body.”

“Of course.” Ineni’s dark eyes were bright, but this time sadness, not joy, made them gleam. She looked down at Alex in her arms. “_Yā ḥabībī2_,” she murmured. “Don’t be ashamed to cry, _bunayy_3, let it all go. Tears are the grief leaving your soul…”

Her soft words, half Arabic and half English, accompanied Ardeth until he left the soothing darkness of the tent and walked back into the harsh light of day.

* * *

Evy seemed to be clinging to her stiff upper lip like a lifeline. She stood silent and unmoving on the sidelines as Rick and Ardeth picked up Jonathan’s body and carried it into an unoccupied tent not too far from the dirigible.

She still hadn’t cried. It was starting to worry Rick a little.

While they walked, he explained to Ardeth, in a few terse words, what had happened: Hamilton and the seal, Baine and his orders to kill, getting separated, losing Ferguson, and stopping Hamilton by making the giant gong fall on him – then running and ducking bullets, reaching safety, and finding out that they had run out of miracles after all. It had only taken one bullet. One. They had dodged all the rest.

Ardeth listened, attentive, grave. He looked almost exactly like he had when Rick had seen him after that battle two years ago, sombre and weary, but there was a crease between his eyebrows and a grim downturn to his mouth that hadn’t been there before.

When they were finished, having draped a blanket on the body for good measure, they stood outside the tent for a moment, watching the camp. People passed by, cried, laughed, held each other, or just walked in silence. The camp was hardly quiet around them, but still Rick felt like all the sounds weren’t reaching his brain correctly. There was no getting rid of that damn hush.

Ardeth looked at him sideways.

“I am glad you’re alive, too, O’Connell,” he said quietly. Rick gave a nod of acknowledgement, then something halfway between a sigh and a snort.

“After all this time,” he said in the same tone, “you _can_ call me ‘Rick’, you know. There’s only two people who –” _Damn_. He had slipped up again. He cleared his throat, and finished, just a little roughly, “I mean, the only other person who does is Evy.”

Ardeth’s eyes softened just a little.

“Then I will.”

“Thank you.”

And Ardeth left to attend to his duties, leaving Rick to his own.

The tent wasn’t large, but it was high enough to stand in. Inside, the brutal light was dimmed, the shadows softened, but Evy’s face was hard when she sat down on the frayed carpet, a couple of yards from the unmoving form under the blanket.

Rick sat beside his wife, wrapped his arms around her, and waited.

After a while, she said, in a clipped, almost foreign voice, “We could never recover our parents’ bodies, did you know that? After the crash.”

Rick held her closer and kissed her temple. “No, I didn’t.”

“They found parts of the plane floating in the Mediterranean sea, of course, and enough evidence that nobody had survived before sending us the letter. I went to absolute pieces when we got it. Jonathan had to make tea and sit on the floor with me until I could breathe properly. I don’t think he remembers now, though, he looked like a sleepwalker at the time.”

It was warm inside the tent, hot, even. Yet he could feel Evy on the brink of trembling. Shivers were moving up and down her back like ripples on a lake in a light breeze.

“My parents never got a proper grave but at least they had each other. Now, he… We’re going to have to bury him here, far from home, and he’s going to be so _lonely_…”

The rest of her sentence was lost as she finally yielded to her grief and let the tears fall. She curled into Rick’s chest and sobbed and sobbed while Rick held her tightly, wanting so badly to shelter her from everything and keenly aware that he couldn’t.

Rick spent some of the longest hours of his life in this tent, alternating between a silent vigil and quiet, broken conversations that gradually got less fractured as the sun rose and fell outside. Sleep got very tempting around two in the afternoon, but he rubbed his eyes and stayed stubbornly awake. There was no way in hell he would leave Evy alone with her ghosts and the corpse of her brother.

Toward the end of the afternoon, as Evy drifted in and out of sleep, Rick heard footsteps in the sand on the other side of the canvas. A hand drew the flap, and Ardeth poked his head inside, a very odd look on his face.

“What’s up?” Rick asked, suspicious. Evy stirred against him and turned to Ardeth with the same unspoken question, tousled-haired and puffy-eyed.

Ardeth seemed to hesitate. Then he spoke.

“You told me Tom Ferguson was dead.”

Rick rubbed his eyes and tried to gather his memories. The poor bastard had almost vanished from his mind the moment they had come running out of the pyramid.

“I said he must be. He and Jonathan got trapped on either side of a wall and he got jumped by pygmy mummies. Jonathan was pretty damn sure he was dead. Why?”

“Because…” Ardeth frowned, and continued, his voice as steady as it always was, “Because we finally gathered all the surviving agents. Among them, we found Hamilton; he’s alive, but completely unresponsive. I don’t think he can even hear us.”

Rick’s eyebrow shot up. “How’d he get out of the pyramid, then?”

“Ferguson carried him out.”

“_What?_”

* * *

1(تالله): “By God”

2(يَا حَبِيبِي): “Oh my darling”

3(بُنَيّ): “little son” (endearment)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …trust me?


	21. Unlooked For and Unhoped For

Tom Ferguson was exhausted, bruised, and in pain, but he was alive. He was still coming to grips with that fact. Frankly, he found it astonishing.

He had barely been aware of Jon screaming on the other side of the wall while the pygmy mummies attacked again. In the utter confusion he had somehow managed to not get hit by blow darts, only get grazed by a knife, and then fall down the same hole O’Connell had disappeared into earlier. Sometimes his luck got so bad it could pass for good fortune.

He landed hard and lost consciousness on impact. When he woke up and took inventory of his injuries, he found a red streak on his side – not deep, thankfully – courtesy of the pygmy mummies, rivulets of blood on his hands from where he had tried to slow down his fall, and an extensive set of bruises on his left side. At least he had not broken anything.

The tablet he had been holding was still whole, too, and fortunately it hadn’t fallen on him. Considering the weight, he half-expected it to be made of stone.

The respect Tom had for the written word, plus the natural curiosity that had led him into his chosen profession, made him tuck the tablet into his rucksack. The circumstances made him promptly forget about it.

He started making his way down even before his brain decided on what to do. What did he have? _No weapon and a whole lot of bruises_, his mind helpfully answered. _Where does that leave you, you fool?_

Jon and O’Connell were still out there, and they would do anything to stop Hamilton. Maybe he could find them again down there and help them.

Tom realised his feet were leading him to the chamber Hamilton had released Anubis’ Army from, and he followed them, ignoring the voice at the back of his brain calling him a twonk for not going the other way.

He wasn’t far from the chamber when he heard the crash and felt the strange, numbing darkness go through him like an accelerated bout of the flu. He only ran harder when he heard the gunshots and felt the floor start to shake.

Jon and O’Connell were nowhere in sight when he sprinted into the chamber. The only people there were Robertson, Collins, and Bennett, the first two trying to lift a big gong off the floor while Bennett pulled on something underneath with all his might.

Tom wasn’t very tall, but he was taller than Bennett, and heftier. He limped his way across the floor, dodging falling debris, and went to help him.

They all stared at him, goggle-eyed.

“Ferguson!?” said Robertson.

“You’re alive!” Collins sputtered.

Tom rolled his eyes.

“Not thanks to you idiots. Where’s everybody? And who’s under the gong?”

“The boss,” said Bennett with difficulty, muscles straining. “Your mates shot at the chains holding it to the wall and made it fall on him. Baine took his hit squad and tore off after them.”

Tom couldn’t help a shudder before he rallied himself. Jon had been quite fleet of foot in their dissolute youth, and O’Connell obviously was no slouch either. They would be all right.

They had to be.

“Yeah, well, I’m not cryin’ over the bastard,” he said, evenly enough. “And you should thank them when you get out, because I’m pretty sure knockin’ out Hamilton saved the whole bloody world.”

The three agents shot him doubtful looks, but didn’t object. Maybe they had come to their senses and accepted they had made a right cock-up of things. And maybe, Tom thought with an inner snigger, somewhere, pigs sprouted wings and flew.

When they finally pulled him out from under the gong, it became obvious that Hamilton was a little bit worse than ‘knocked out’. His right arm stuck out at an unnatural angle, and the small pool of blood where his head lay didn’t bode well for his future. However, when Tom reached for his neck to check his pulse, he turned out to be alive.

A larger tremor almost sent the four men joining the fifth on the ground. Robertson, Bennett, and Collins looked at each other.

“This place really is falling apart, isn’t it?” Bennett ventured. Robertson and Collins nodded fervently.

“And we should get the hell out, huh?”

“Probably,” said Tom, still bent over Hamilton. “Hey, can you—”

Hurried footsteps interrupted him. Tom looked up to see the three agents running like hell towards the exit.

He sent a half-pleading, half-exasperated look heavenwards. Then he looked back down at his erstwhile boss.

There was nothing he wanted to do more than crash and sleep for days. But he would have to be alive for that – _and_ be able to look at himself in the mirror afterwards.

With a pained cry, Tom hefted Hamilton’s body on his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and made for the exit on somewhat trembling legs.

“If you ever wonder who saved your sorry arse,” he snarled between clenched teeth, knowing Hamilton was beyond hearing anything but too tired and furious to care, “I’ll be sure to let you know it was me. And then, you’ll… then you’ll ask, ‘Why on earth did that idiot bother saving a man who ordered him and his friends dead the second he… he didn’t need them?’ And I’ll look at you in your cell – b—because you’ll be in prison, obviously – and I’ll say… I’ll say…”

He stopped, swallowed a mixture of spit and grit, and continued with a grunt, “I’ll say there was no way in _hell_ I would let you get away with it. You… dragged your subordinates into the desert to play with a supernatural army. You set that army on the world without knowing or caring about who they would slaughter. You put Gabriel fucking Baine in charge. You forced me to double-cross the best bloke I ever… ever drank Scotch with. You… _You kidnapped my wife_, you unbelievable bastard! You’re going to live, and you’re going to jail.”

Halfway up Tom had to stop muttering, needing the breath to put one foot in front of the other and just keep going, despite Hamilton’s dead weight, despite the crumbling pyramid, despite the dust and the tremors. Spite fuelled his muscles, aided by a righteous fury like he had hardly felt before and all the pent-up worry about Liz, Jon, and the end of the world he had accumulated for over a week.

Still, when he finally caught sight of blinding light at the end of the last flight of stairs, tears sprang out of his eyes.

How he made those final few yards, still bent under Hamilton’s weight, he would never know. He barely even noticed the threatening-looking desert warriors in black holding him at gunpoint before his knees gave out and he collapsed on the sand, dropping his boss’s body near him.

In a haze, delirious with exhaustion, he vaguely felt a rumble from underneath the pyramid. It seemed to travel all the way from the centre of the earth to the surface. When it hit, the big blocks of stone that formed the top of the pyramid started to shake; the diamond Hamilton himself had placed between the scorpion statue’s pincers last evening – a century ago – trembled and fell into the collapsing stones, which broke apart, until there was nothing left but rocks and sand.

The Pyramid of Ahm Shere had disappeared.

Tom’s eyes rolled in his head. Everything went black.

When he came to, he was lying on a carpet in a vast tent, surrounded by wounded agents. Someone had cleaned and patched up the wound in his side and the scratches on his hands – most likely one of the men and women with black clothes and facial tattoos who walked about between them, taking care of injuries with distant efficiency. They had left him his rucksack, although it had been stripped of anything remotely weapon-like. Only his notebooks and his pencil bag remained, half stuck to the tablet still mostly covered in black gunk.

He only realised he was a prisoner when they sent him away into another tent, where he found Robertson, Bennett, McLean, and a few others.

“Don’t tell we’re all that’s left,” he gasped. Hamilton would have a _lot_ to answer for.

Robertson shook his head.

“There must be other tents. Collins survived, too, and he didn’t need the infirmary.”

“Oh. Good.” Tom looked around. “Anyone heard about Carnahan and O’Connell? Do you know if they got out?”

He was met with mostly disdain mingled with disgust. “They almost killed the boss and brought down the pyramid on top of us, and you ask about _them_ first?” Hinckley said, his lip curling. “You bloody traitor.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake…” Tom made to rub his face, looked at his bandaged hands, and changed his mind. “The pyramid was going to collapse anyway, all right?” he exclaimed. “Just before sunrise, when the new moon set. They just stopped Anubis’ Army from taking over the world because Hamilton –”

“Hang on,” interrupted McLean, squinting at him. “How did you know the pyramid would collapse?”

“Because I did my job!” shouted Tom. “I questioned people! I crossed sources! I investigated! Hamilton based his entire operation on fairy tales and hokum, and he didn’t even bother to check if he had the right version of the bloody legend to begin with!”

“But…” Bennett’s voice was hesitant. “But he’s the boss. Surely he knows better, doesn’t he?”

Tom stared at him, floored. Then at the other agents, various shades of uncertainty between them.

“Sod this,” he finally articulated. “I’m out.”

He went to the tent entrance, and carefully – very carefully – drew the flap and looked at the stern-faced young man guarding the tent with a machine gun.

“Excuse me?” he said in Arabic. The man turned and glared at him, but Tom didn’t falter. “I… Are there any news about Jonathan Carnahan and Rick O’Connell? Your allies. Did they make it out of the pyramid? I just want to know if they’re all right.”

The Medjai fixed him with a beady stare.

“Why?” he eventually asked.

“Because we’re friends, believe it or not. And I don’t think they even know I’m still alive.”

The man stared at him suspiciously. “What’s your name?”

“Tom Ferguson.”

“I’ll see what I can do. You’d better not be lying to save your skin.”

Tom thanked him, went back inside, and waited.

And waited.

None of his colleagues talked to him – not that they talked much to each other, either. After a silence that seemed to last hours, someone parted the canvas and entered the tent. Tom scrambled to his feet, clutching the straps of his rucksack despite the bandages. He recognised the man. The first and last time he had seen him had been in the flickering light of campfires and burning tents, standing very tall with a scimitar in hand, staring at Charles Hamilton with fury blazing in his eyes.

In the light of day, Ardeth Bay appeared less tall, more tired, more human. His face was drawn, but his eyes were sharp as he zeroed in on Tom when the guard pointed at him.

“You are Tom Ferguson?” he asked in English with a lilting accent.

Tom gulped in spite of himself. Jon _had_ said the man was intimidating. “Er, yes.”

“_You_ are Tom Ferguson?”

The emphasis puzzled Tom. “Yes, I am – why?”

Ardeth Bay still stared at him, unblinking. “Witnesses say you carried Charles Hamilton’s body out of the pyramid seconds before it collapsed. Did you?”

“I’ll say,” Tom said fervently. “That man needs to get dragged in front of a court. He sorta has to be alive for that. How are Jon and O’Connell?” he added, emboldened by the fact that nobody seemed to want to point a gun or a sword at him. “Did they get out all right?”

The dark eyes flickered, the strong jaw clenched slightly. “Come with me.”

Tom followed him outside, ignoring the questions and protests of the agents behind him. Surprisingly, he was left alone, no gun at his back, hands and legs free of restraints. He walked behind Ardeth Bay silently, gazing around him and accelerating just a little sometimes to catch up with the man’s long strides.

The camp was huge. There was no end in sight to the well-ordered rows of tents. People, camels, and horses passed him by, carrying water, supplies, and what looked like dead bodies wrapped in white cloth. Nobody paid him any attention, but his escort – his captor – was often saluted.

They stopped in front of a smaller tent. After a few words with whoever was inside, Ardeth Bay stepped back, and Rick O’Connell stepped out.

He looked Tom over from head to toe with a dull kind of surprise and said, “…Huh.”

Something Tom hadn’t realised had been tense relaxed somewhere in his ribcage. He gave a small smile. “Hullo, O’Connell. Good to see you. Where’s Jon?”

To his surprise, O’Connell’s face fell. An eerie sense of wrongness started to creep its way into Tom’s heart. He did his best to ignore it.

“He’s, uh… He’s in there,” O’Connell finally said, and as Tom made to go inside he grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “But there’s something I gotta tell you first.”

Tom looked at the hand on his arm, then at the man’s face. The impression came back in full force.

And then he understood. O’Connell didn’t even need to say it out loud. It was spelled out in his eyes and carved out on the lines of his face.

“No,” Tom said in a small voice, halfway between incredulity and flat out denial. “No. He can’t. He can’t be. That’s not…”

His voice died when Evelyn O’Connell came out of the tent, looking cold and drained of energy. Everything, from her red eyes to her posture, shoulders slumped and arms folded across herself, said what hadn’t been said aloud. Her usually sharp, bright gaze was muted as it slid over him as though he wasn’t fully there.

Ardeth Bay and O’Connell shared a meaningful look before the Medjai Commander slipped away like a shadow, to come back later.

Tom barely noticed. His head was swimming, full of a cold white fog. He stumbled, suddenly dizzy, and almost fell to the ground when a small blond-headed missile crashed into him, yelling inarticulately. In-between insults, curses, and just plain howls of pain, he heard “—_traitor_, and why did _you_ get out alive and not—” and his brain seemed to stop functioning.

The boy’s face was scrunched up, pinched, looking nothing like the round-faced mischievous child Tom had seen at the bazaar with Jon, what felt like ages ago. His fists were balled up and he looked ready to do some damage – or at least try to – when O’Connell grabbed him by the middle and gathered him in his arms. He talked in Alex’s ear for a little while before the boy wriggled free and ran off. With a sigh, his father went after him.

Tom, still rooted to the spot, breathing too little and too fast, met Evelyn’s eyes. They appeared to soften ever so slightly.

“I’m sorry about Alex,” she said, her voice low and a little hoarse. “We didn’t have time to tell him what happened during the trip and in the pyramid.”

There were a million things Tom wanted to ask or say, but he could barely get air in and out of his lungs. Words just couldn’t get out. They seemed to run into one another, bunch up in his throat, and block everything.

Evelyn ran a hand across her face, then another. The stiffness and the exhaustion remained.

“I’m going to find them. If you… You can say goodbye. If you want to.”

Tom nodded. That seemed to be the extent of what he was currently capable of.

She lay a gentle hand on his arm as she passed. The sensation jolted some life back into him.

It was quiet inside the tent. The light from outside was dimmed and tinged with blue by the fabric. The shade and the silence did him good; his breathing still hitched, but at least he could mostly fill his lungs again.

There was a vague form on the ground, covered by a blanket. That had to be Jon. Tom itched to raise a corner, to make _sure_ – but at the same time he was intimately aware that wild horses couldn’t drag him close enough to that blanket, let alone the body underneath.

Alex hadn’t been wrong, had he? Tom still had no idea what had happened since they had got separated or what had killed Jon, but… If he hadn’t bumped into Jon a couple of weeks ago… If he had seen Hamilton for the lunatic he was earlier… If he hadn’t been such a coward in the first place and said, ‘No, I’m not doing this’…

If.

Tom dropped his rucksack. It hit the ground with a loud thud. Then he sank down, drew up his knees, and let his face fall into his hands.

Nothing mattered for a long time.

* * *

Alex’s mouth was dry when he woke up, his nose was stuffy, and his head hurt a little bit. It felt a lot like it had the last time he had caught a cold that had forced him – for real – to miss class for a few days. For a second he wondered where he was, where his mum was, and – because this had been his main preoccupation over the past week – whether his dad and his uncle were safe…

And then it hit him.

Uncle Jon.

Who was dead.

Not knocked out, not taken, not elsewhere, just dead.

And he hadn’t even said goodbye.

Alex’s breath caught in his throat.

He thought of blue eyes twinkling at him over ice cream bought on a street corner; conspiratorial whispers across the dinner table; a comforting arm around his shoulders while Dad yelled at Ardeth about Mum, Imhotep, and the Scorpion King; long conversations about school, myths and legends, _King Kong_ and _Captain Blood_…

His uncle had always been there, and then, just like that, he wasn’t.

_It takes a lot more than a knock on the head to get rid of me_, Uncle Jon had said, waving away his concern, and Alex had believed him at the time. Well, he hadn’t exactly been lying, had he?

“Do you want some tea, _ḥabībī1_?” asked a soft voice. Alex rubbed his cheeks, his skin stiff with salt from dried tears, and shuffled closer.

“Yes, please,” he said dully, sitting with his legs crossed and his back straight out of habit. Ineni was always nice to him, and her _ghorayeba2_ were to die for. She had made _sa‘idi_ tea_3_; he watched her deftly pour the strong dark tea into a small glass from a height. As usual, not a single drop fell around the glass.

To his surprise, Alex realised he was hungry, and picked up a _ghorayeba_. Soon only a few crumbs remained.

He hoped the tea and butter biscuits would help dissolve the thick ball of misery that had settled into his chest, like it usually did.

It didn’t.

“Where’s my mum and dad?” he asked, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Ineni blew gently on her own tea. “Ardeth set up a tent for them not far from here. Maira can take you there, if you want to.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice. Thanks.”

They had the rest of their tea and biscuits in silence. Afterwards, Alex thanked Ineni, still feeling subdued, like he was too tired to raise his voice.

Maira was waiting for him outside the tent, watching him intently, her big dark eyes very bright. Her mum had done her hair in her family’s style, and the many thin braids danced around her face as she moved.

They walked silently for a little while, Alex scuffing at the sand now and then. Then he asked, not looking up, “Do you think dead people really go to Heaven?”

Maira, as usual, considered the question seriously before she answered in Arabic, slowly enough for him to understand, “Maybe not all the dead. If you’ve done something really, really bad, I don’t think you can go there.”

“Bad, like… killed people?”

Maira’s reply was unusually hesitant, even quizzical. “Maybe?”

Uncle Jon had killed people. Mum and Dad had killed people. Maira’s mum and dad had killed people. Somehow, though, Alex couldn’t – refused to – imagine a heaven that denied them entry.

Maybe it was a bad thing to think or say, but a heaven that didn’t want Uncle Jon in it couldn’t be very interesting anyway.

“I hope my Uncle Tamer is in paradise,” she said, her voice low – so low Alex almost didn’t get all the words. Something unexpected pierced the heavy blanket of grief that seemed to dull everything, and it took him a moment to recognise it as sympathy.

“Your uncle’s dead?”

“He fell to the Warriors of Anubis two years ago. My mother cried for a whole day. Sabni was a baby, but I remember.” She tugged at one of her braids and toyed with the pearl at the end. “He had a big laugh, and he told the best stories.”

Alex nodded and tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry about your Uncle Jon.” Maira stopped, gave him a very serious look – Alex was suddenly struck by how much she looked like her father – and said, in English this time, “People die. If they die not, people are not born. We cry and we remember. We tell stories, and they live.”

Alex looked down again.

“I don’t want stories,” he mumbled. “I want him back.”

Then he looked up, and his heart skipped a beat.

There, standing in front of a tent, talking to his dad, was a stout, broad-faced man. He was scruffy and dishevelled, and looked a far cry from the friendly, smiling man from Alex’s memories, but he recognised him instantly.

Alex launched himself at Ferguson, enraged, wanting nothing more than to punch him into the sand. How dare the double-crossing git be still alive, his mind screamed. How dare he just stand there and not even make a show of defending himself. How _dare_ –

Dad picked him up and held him close while he flailed around, and through the mist in his head Alex caught bits of sentences.

The guy had helped. Saved their lives, even, in the pyramid. He was actually a good guy, and had only just heard about Uncle Jon.

Alex didn’t care. He slipped from his father’s embrace and took off at a run. His mum and dad found him kicking a wooden crate. His foot was starting to hurt.

They sat on the crate, took him in their arms, and they talked. And talked.

It took a while before the clawing, snarling thing in Alex’s chest that made him want to keep kicking the crate till his foot fell off calmed down.

When the three of them fell silent, Alex remained snuggled against his dad a while, until someone’s stomach – either Rick’s or Evelyn’s – rumbled. The sound was absurd enough to force a smile out of him.

It turned out that, while Alex had had tea and biscuits with Ineni, neither of his parents had eaten anything since sundown the day before. Since Alex was absolutely not hungry, he insisted on staying in the tent while they went out for food, swearing he would stay where they knew he was, and behave.

“I want to say goodbye to Uncle Jon,” he managed to say around the lump in his throat. Dad gently ran a big hand through his hair and Mum kissed his forehead, and they let him go.

In the tent, somewhat to Alex’s relief, Uncle Jon didn’t look like Uncle Jon – or rather, he looked like Uncle Jon on the mornings he spent at the house, snug in his bed with a blanket pulled up over his head. It was always fun to go wake him up then, no matter how grumpy he got.

Alex’s foot caught in something, dragging him back to the present. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the strap of a big rucksack. Its owner was huddled up a few feet away, knees drawn up, his head in his hands.

When Alex had seen Tom Ferguson, he’d been more or less the same height as Uncle Jon, and larger, but now he looked small, and tired, and utterly miserable.

Alex, feeling quite small, tired, and miserable himself, finally let go of the last remnants of his anger and grudgingly allowed himself to feel a little sorry for the bloke.

“Um,” he began, making Ferguson jump. “I’m, er. I’m sorry about earlier.”

There seemed to be a lot of ‘sorry’ to go around today, he thought.

Ferguson looked up and stared at him bleakly. His face was pinched and his eyes red and puffy, but he wasn’t crying, or had stopped some time ago. Alex found it a relief, and a second later wondered if it was a mean thing to think.

“Mum and Dad told me about…” He swallowed. “About the whole thing. Not the _whole_ whole thing, obviously, there’s always stuff they don’t tell me because I’m a kid and I shouldn’t… You know.”

Ferguson nodded vaguely, still silent. Alex wished he would say something, anything; but he also knew from experience that sometimes, for whatever reason – when you were ill, or shocked, or just too sad – words just… stopped.

His gaze dropped and fell on the rucksack lying on the ground. The top wasn’t fastened and something stuck out, something big and dark in the shape of a rough rectangle.

“What’s that?” Alex asked, natural curiosity – always bubbling near the surface – rising again despite everything. Ferguson gave a small shrug. Alex interpreted it as permission to get a closer look.

Whatever it was, it was heavy, and it was filthy. It appeared to be some sort of tablet wrapped in a kind of dark, sticky crust; when Alex picked at the goo some of it crumbled under his fingers like caked mud. Some of it had already been scraped away on one side, exposing hieroglyphs. Alex conscientiously finished the job, gingerly and patiently, like his parents had taught him, and when he was done cleaning the tablet he stared at the engraved words and tried to make sense of them.

_Followers… of the Ruler of… the West… _

His heart seemed to stop and start again, only much, _much_ faster. He knew those words. He had _seen_ those words. In fact, he had not even needed to translate them at the time, because, thanks to the Bracelet of Anubis, one glance at the hieroglyphs had spelled it out in his head as though it was written in English.

_Followers of the Ruler of the West who are stretched out on your side, lying on your biers, may your flesh rise up, may your bones be put together…4_

Alex’s head started to spin, the familiar words dancing in front of his eyes like bright spots when he got up too quickly. It couldn’t be possible. It was too fantastic…

He grabbed the tablet with both hands and shook the rucksack from it. The weight was just as he remembered. The eight-pronged star-shaped lock was barely visible on the cover; the two fasteners shaped like serpents’ heads he had seen Imhotep open with a wave of his hand were bent to the sides, twisted, mangled. Alex reached with a trembling hand, and, holding his breath, sank his fingers into the thick muck on the edge.

He found the edge of a page, and turned it.

The Book of the Dead lay open in his arms.

“Bloody hell,” Alex breathed.

This got Ferguson’s attention. He looked up at Alex, frowning.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a little croaky.

Alex jumped to his feet and turned to him, still open-mouthed and his eyes open so wide it almost hurt.

“Where…? _How_…?” No, wait, that wasn’t important. “Do you _know_ what this is!?”

Ferguson blinked. “Not really,” he said. “I thought it had somethin’ to do with the Scorpion King when I picked it up. Then we got attacked, and…” He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers, and finished, “I just kind of forgot about it. Why?”

“Because it’s the Book of the Dead!” Alex squeaked. “The _actual_ Book of the Dead! Do you have any idea what it can _do_?”

Ferguson shook his head mutely. Alex stood there, the book in his hands, positively vibrating with excitement.

“It means we can get Uncle Jon back!”

Ferguson’s jaw dropped open.

“…No,” he said, but Alex noticed his head went up and down instead of side to side. “No, wait – that’s not – _how_ –”

“I don’t know _how_, that’s the magic part, but it works. It _works_. I brought back my mum with it when Anck-su-namun killed her.”

Ferguson was still staring at the book, brown eyes bugging out. “Your mother… but… Didn’t your mother wake up Imhotep with that book?”

Alex refrained the urge to roll his eyes. Grownups were so slow sometimes.

“Yes,” he said as patiently as he could, “but that was another spell. And she found it at random – she wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I know where the correct spell is, I’ve used it before. I can bring Uncle Jon back!”

He tottered closer to Ferguson, plopped down next to him, and slammed the book on the carpet. Ferguson started at the thump. Alex ignored him and turned the pages, following hieroglyphs with his finger to decipher them until –

There.

He had found it.

And this time, he ruddy well remembered that darn _Ahmenophus_ stork symbol.

The cold anguish nestled in his chest since the morning had turned into a ball of fire that almost took his breath away. It could work. It should work. It _had_ to work.

Ferguson inched closer, staring down at the book.

“But what if… What if it’s too late?” he asked quietly. “What if… I mean, what if he comes back wrong? Or doesn’t come back at all? What if you call somethin’ else?”

The question froze Alex in his tracks and made him feel as though someone had dipped a bucket of ice over him. Maybe Ferguson was right. Maybe it _was_ too late. When he had brought back his mum, only an hour or two had passed since her death. How much time had it been since sunrise?

The ice in Alex’s heart turned to steel. He had the book. Uncle Jon was right there. He just couldn’t at least _try_.

He took a long, deep breath, and began to read.

_O you who keep the gates because of Osiris, I know you and I know your names…5_

The Ancient Egyptian words came out slowly, carefully, a little more strongly than they had two years ago. Alex was slightly more certain of his pronunciation this time and he had nothing to distract him – no evil lady trying to deprive him of yet more family members, no weird half-scorpion creature rising from the dead and beating up his dad a few chambers farther. There was only his uncle’s body, somewhere under that blanket. The only other living being was a man who had been an enemy and wasn’t yet a friend, but who mourned like Alex had mourned, and stared at him with eyes as big as saucers and a tiny, wobbling hope.

Alex read on, plodding through the now familiar words.

…_Enter the mysterious vault to breathe life into the Weary of Heart, he who sleeps on his left side. Awake the sleeper, so Amun is pleased!_6

Alex practically crowed the last “_Efday shokran Ahmenophus_” and his eyes jumped from the book to the body, his heart hammering in his chest. Beside him, he heard Ferguson’s breath catch.

Tiny pinpricks of light rose from the sand around them, as though picked up by a wind Alex couldn’t feel. Gradually they clustered together in a bright, swirling mass above them, gathering speed, soaking the inside of the tent in warm, amber-coloured light. The blob of light grew thinner and longer and slowly descended before gently settling down through the blanket on the body underneath.

Alex and Ferguson gulped and looked at each other.

Every single one of Ferguson’s “what ifs” was suddenly running through Alex’s mind, bolstered with others and crowding his brain. What if he had read wrong? What if he had mispronounced a symbol? What if –

The blanket trembled, then fell as something that looked very much like a mummy sat up abruptly with a muffled scream.

Ferguson gave a startled yelp.

And despite everything – or perhaps because of everything, and because he was still a tired, sad, and scared ten year old boy – Alex couldn’t help it.

He screamed, too.

* * *

1“sweetie”

2Egyptian sweet biscuit / butter cookie, similar to shortbread, often topped with roasted almonds.

3_Sa‘idi_ (literally “from Upper Egypt”) tea is a strong black tea popular in Upper (southern) Egypt, that has to have much more sugar not to taste bitter. Contrast with _kushari_ tea (which is also the name of a pasta, rice, and lentil dish), a light black tea, lightly sweetened, popular in Lower Egypt, and what Abbas was drinking with Tom in chapter 10.

4_Followers of the Ruler of the West who are stretched out on their side, lying on their biers, may your flesh rise up, may your bones be put together_: that’s not from the Book of the Dead, but from the Book of Gates, an Ancient Egyptian funerary text describing the passage of a soul through the Underworld (with a different goddess at each Gate). I cheated.

5From the Book of the Dead, spell 144. The Tutankhamun exhibition was instructive in more ways than one.

6Okay, this is a hodgepodge of excerpts from the Book of the Dead (the real-world one) and enough tweaking and piecing together to give any student of Egyptology reading this a heart attack. “_The sleeper awakes, Osiris-Khentamentiu awakes here with his _ka_, he who sleeps on his left side, the sleeper!_” is from spell 517 (the aforementioned “sleeper” who “sleeps on his left side” – a symbol for death – being the deceased); “_I cause Ra to enter Osiris, I cause Osiris to enter Ra. I cause him to enter the mysterious vault, so as to breathe life into the Weary of Heart, the sheltered _ba_ who is in the West_” is from spell 182. And the Amun thing? Well, “Amenophis” was the Greek version of the Ancient Egyptian name “Amenhotep”, which means “_Amun is pleased_”. My own interpretation of the “_ahmenophus_” that concludes both Jonathan’s inscription in TM and the spell that wakes up Evy in TMR. Told you, heart attacks :D


	22. Kith and Kin

Evelyn had made an effort, but she hadn’t eaten much. She had downed what she could and had left Rick to his own meal with the assurance that she would be all right and only needed to check on Alex. Which was only half a lie.

Early twilight had softened the sunlight until it was a warm caress instead of a blow and started to paint the sky with spectacular colours. Evelyn’s gaze was lost in the distance as she walked, hardly noticing the beauty of the Egyptian sunset.

She started violently when she heard her son scream. Five seconds later, she burst into the tent, her heart pounding. Then she felt her eyes go very round.

Whatever she had imagined or feared had nothing on what she saw.

Alex was on his feet, shouting at the top of his lungs, while Tom Ferguson stood in front of him, yelling as well, to all intents and purposes protecting him from – Evelyn’s hands flew to her mouth – a body wrapped in white cloth that writhed and twisted around wildly, screaming muffled words through the fabric. Evelyn dropped beside it, tore up the linen, and found herself staring into her brother’s wide eyes.

Jonathan’s face was bright red and sweaty, his curly hair stood on end in messy twists, and he looked just as thoroughly confused as he had when he had died.

But his chest was heaving and he was shaking, his body warm and alive.

“What –” he stammered, “what – _what_ –”

Evelyn had clear recollections of her resurrection. Or rather, she clearly remembered a few seconds of jumbled confusion as the memories of both lives – Nefertiri’s and Evelyn’s – collided into her mind.

Nefertiri had looked at Alex and said dispassionately, “…_Child_” while Evelyn’s soul had cried, “_MINE_”. And Evelyn had seen her brother in peril and shouted in her mind, “_Jonathan!_” while Nefertiri’s soul, sounding puzzled, had said, “_Who?_”

Evelyn had let her mostly take charge in the urgency of the situation, muscle memory returning to muscles that never actually had worked like that, and in the end they had both fought Anck-su-namun before Nefertiri and her memories retreated to the back of her mind. Despite the confusion, it had been a relief, having this other set of recollections when she woke up, like a strong, friendly arm that helped you pick yourself up.

Who knew what was going on in Jonathan’s head right now, fresh from a journey so inscrutable her brain still didn’t let her access it two years later?

She grabbed his head between her hands and forced him to look at her.

“Jonathan,” she said, her voice almost steady, “it’s me. Do you know who you are? Do you know who _I_ am?”

Jonathan’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. His eyes were still darting here and there, but they gradually seemed to gain focus.

“Evy – of course I – what did –” He took a deep breath, and with a voice that still trembled badly, articulated with utmost earnestness, “What the _fuck_—?”

Alex let out a nervous giggle somewhere on her left.

Overwhelming relief and hysterical laughter crashed into Evelyn at the same time, colliding with what remained of the grief and loss. The dam broke, and she flung her arms round her brother, bursting into tears.

“Oh, Jon, you… It’s… I love you so much, you idiot, don’t _ever_…”

Jonathan still looked frankly alarmed, but awkwardly freed his arms from the linen encasing him from feet to torso and held her tightly against him. His shivering died down, his breathing slowed back to normal, and after a while she felt him melt into her embrace.

“Evy…” he murmured into her hair. “Why on earth do I look like a bloody mummy?”

Evelyn laughed through her tears and gripped him tighter. The next moment, a small, warm body barrelled into them. Jonathan let out a small “_Oof_, easy there” and they both shifted their arms to welcome Alex into the hug.

“I remembered ‘_Ahmenophus_’ this time, Uncle Jon!” he half-laughed, half-cried. “I recognised the Book and I remembered the whole spell –”

“Great job, partner. Knew you could do it,” Jonathan said distractedly, clearly more focused on holding on his sister and nephew for dear life. Then he opened one eye. “What book?”

The flood of emotions inside Evelyn abated, and curiosity and rationality made their way back to the forefront of her mind, along with a thousand questions. She gently disentangled herself from Jonathan and Alex and stared at her son.

“Alex,” she began, suspicion and awe making her voice unsteady, “how…?”

“He had the Book of the Dead!” Alex exclaimed, pointing to the side. “And he didn’t even _know_!”

Evelyn followed Alex’s index finger to Ferguson, who was standing there looking thunderstruck, his face the colour of chalk. Jonathan’s mouth dropped open.

“Tommy!” he blurted out; then, turning to Alex with wide eyes, “Did you bring him back, too?”

Alex shook his head. “No,” he said patiently, “he found the Book in the pyramid and got out. Only he didn’t know what it was. But I did, and it worked!”

The Book of the Dead. Evelyn’s eyes fell on the big obsidian artefact lying open on the carpet, almost innocuous, half-covered with filth. Ferguson had found _the_ _Book of the Dead_. And he had unwittingly given it to one of the two people alive who knew exactly what to look for.

Jonathan gaped at the three of them for a handful of seconds, then hastily wriggled out of the linen, ripping at the cloth to free himself faster. Evelyn supported him as he staggered up, and he closed the few steps between him and Ferguson on somewhat wobbly legs.

“I thought you were dead!” he said, wonder in his voice.

Ferguson let out a strangled, nervous laugh. “I win, mate. I actually saw your corpse.”

There was a beat; then he threw himself at Jonathan and wrapped him in what must be a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, I _say_.” Jonathan looked bewildered and awkward, his hands hovering as though he had no idea what to do with them. He finally seemed to make up his mind and returned Ferguson’s embrace tightly, almost fiercely. “I really am glad you’re not dead, too, old chap,” he said with a shaky smile.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into all this, Jon,” said Ferguson in a broken voice. “And I’m sorry I lied to you.”

Jonathan blinked. Then his expression shifted, his eyes closed, and his shoulders sagged a little bit.

“Ah, well,” Evelyn heard him sigh into Ferguson’s shoulder. “All water under the bridge now.”

Evelyn smiled. If Jonathan had forgiven Tom Ferguson, then she could afford to do the same. Especially since he had been instrumental in giving her back her brother.

The two men broke apart with a bit of sniffling and self-conscious throat clearing, eyes suspiciously bright. She left them a few seconds to compose themselves, then asked, holding up the Book of the Dead, “How on earth did you find _this_ and not know what it was?”

“Yeah,” Alex chimed in, narrowing his eyes at Tom, “I thought you said you loved old books?”

“I do,” said Tom. “I just… It looked like a tablet engraved with a sort of poem about the Scorpion King, and it was covered in… well, _that_. I just picked it up for somethin’ to do while we waited for O’Connell, and then…” He swallowed. “The pygmy mummies attacked. The next thing I knew I was falling down a big hole, still holdin’ that thing. I put it in me bag and forgot about it.”

He shot an awed, almost reverent look at the book.

“It really does work,” he said softly, his gaze going from the book to Alex, then Jonathan. Who grinned.

“I _knew_ you didn’t believe me.”

“I do now, that’s for sure.” Tom poked a finger into Jonathan’s breastbone. “Good God, I can’t believe you’re actually alive. Wait, does that mean you’re undead, now?”

Jonathan spluttered indignantly; Alex burst out laughing. Evelyn shook her head, still smiling, even though half of her was still focused on what she held in her hands. Her mind was spinning.

The Book of the Dead…

She had not touched it in over a decade, but the feel, the weight, the sheer raw power of it was unforgettable. It was like holding Pandora’s Box. The possibilities it opened were endless, if, admittedly, rather daunting…

Footsteps came closer and stopped in front of the tent, and a tattooed hand drew the flap.

“Evelyn? O’Connell said—”

Ardeth stepped into the tent, and his eyes fell on Jonathan.

The man was usually so impassive, so calm – or apt at pretending he was – that Evelyn found what happened next fascinating. His face contorted into an expression of prodigious surprise; then, suddenly, he was smiling the biggest smile she had ever seen on him, the incredulity fading quickly.

“Welcome back, my friend,” he said, still beaming. Jonathan replied with a small smile of his own, unused to finding himself on the receiving end of such open warmth from the Medjai leader. Ardeth stared at him, as though to make sure he was indeed solid, then his gaze shifted to Evelyn. “How—?”

Evelyn mutely held the Book of the Dead, and Jonathan’s hand came to rest on Alex’s head. To Evelyn’s surprise, he didn’t protest nor shove it away.

“I have a very astute nephew, that’s how,” said Jonathan, sincere affection in his voice. Alex’s ears turned pink.

“Mr Ferguson inadvertently brought the Book from the Pyramid of Ahm Shere,” explained Evelyn absently, her eyes coming back to the carved obsidian as though of their own accord. She had always wondered what kind of secrets the Black Book might hold. The Book of Amun-Ra had been her obsession since she had been a small child; she had made it the subject of her thesis and researched it until she felt she almost knew what the gold pages contained. But the Book of the Dead remained shrouded in mystery. She had only held it once: when she had accidentally woken up Imhotep. The amount of information about Ancient Egyptian funerary practices and rituals that could be gained from it was staggering…

She looked up and met Jonathan’s eyes. He was smiling slightly in that way he did when she got so engrossed in her never-ending quest for knowledge that the world could collapse without her noticing. It was a small smile, just on the warmer side of a smirk; she had known that smile all her life, and she had come _so_ close to never seeing it ever again. The thought made her shudder.

The Book of the Dead had brought her back, and then, when everyone had thought it lost, it had resurfaced just in time to bring her brother back.

Perhaps it was time to let someone else have that kind of knowledge.

Evelyn let out a sigh and slowly, reluctantly, placed the book into Ardeth’s hands.

“You already have the Book of the Living in your keeping,” she said. “Now you also have the Book of the Dead.”

Ardeth nodded, his eyes shining with the same emotion she felt, and it occurred to her that he had never even seen the Black Book except for a glimpse of it in Dr Chamberlain’s hands, eleven years ago.

“Do you think…” She chewed on her lip and asked, her voice smaller than she liked, “Do you think I may come and study it, some time?”

Ardeth looked at her. A smile slowly lit up his face, almost as wide as his earlier grin.

“Yes, I think you may.”

“As long as you don’t read it aloud anywhere near a mausoleum,” Jonathan piped up with a laugh. “What do you think the range of this thing might be, by the way?”

“Ooh, be quiet,” she retorted, acutely aware that she had gone quite pink. “What were you going to say about Rick when you came in?” she asked Ardeth, ignoring Jonathan’s good-natured smirk.

Uncharacteristically, Ardeth had to think about his answer.

“That O’Connell – that Rick told me you might be found here,” he said, and Evelyn wondered at the unexpected self-correction. “He was talking about bringing food to Izzy when I saw him. I wanted to… question Mr Ferguson about what happened in the pyramid.” He fixed Tom, who flinched, unaccustomed to the beady stare. “And now it appears that I have more questions.”

Tom opened his arms. “Well, I’m all yours. Ask away.”

Ardeth went first to the back of the tent, where he picked up a piece of the linen that had served as Jonathan’s temporary shroud. He wrapped the Book of the Dead in it with slow, careful gestures, and placed it on the ground. Then he sat next to it with his legs crossed and, with a very dignified gesture, invited Tom to do the same.

“First,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Tom, “I would like you to tell me how you managed to find the High Priest of Osiris in the first place.”

* * *

Jonathan knew most of Tom’s story since Hamilton and his men had departed for the desert, since he had been there for nearly all of it and Tom had already filled in the blanks about what he had been up to before. After a while, he got up, excused himself with a hasty “I’ll just be outside, shall I” and got out of the tent.

Outside, the sun was living its last minutes before night. The sky was still on fire in the west, cobalt blue in the east, the sand cooling down beneath his feet. All living things – humans, camels, desert insects – perked up and came out to enjoy the mild temperatures before it got too cold. Activity in camp was somewhat subdued, as was to be expected, not twenty-four hours after a battle, but a few children were playing three tents over, a young woman was giving water to her horse a little farther, and he could smell food being grilled on a fire somewhere upwind. None of it was new, and yet, somehow, everything was.

If he was the one who had died, how come he felt as though the entire world had just been resurrected?

Jonathan hadn’t felt this unsettled since he had come back home in early 1919. Stepping back into his old life had been like making a stranger’s clothes fit without knowing how to sew – a task that should have been easy but had proved incredibly difficult. Perhaps he had changed, perhaps everything else had changed, he wasn’t sure. His parents had been warm and welcoming and unspeakably grateful to have him back; but now he noticed that they looked tired, his mother’s dark hair was streaked with silver, and his father had shadows under his eyes. His sister had been a skinny child when he had left, barely fifteen years old; now she was a few months shy of eighteen, almost an adult, wearing her hair up and throwing herself into her work as though it was the only thing in the world that mattered. How could he tell her that the only thing that mattered to _him_ was that they were all alive?

If he wanted to be dramatic about it, he could say his life was just a little bit shattered then. And he had no idea how to go about piecing it back together.

Evy, unbeknownst to her, had been the one who had put the first piece of the puzzle back on the board. One night, two weeks or so after his return, she had sneaked into his room, like she had done since before she even knew how to read; she had asked him if he was asleep, then in a small voice said the familiar words, “_Jon, I can’t sleep. Can I stay with you a little while?_”

And maybe the world wasn’t that foreign, after all, because her feet had been icy, as usual, and as usual she had talked and talked to relieve her overflooded brain, and when she was done he told her jokes and stories she had heard a million times but oddly didn’t mind hearing again.

Just before she had truly fallen asleep, he had heard her whisper, “_I’ve missed you, Jonathan_.”

Jonathan had smiled into his pillow, and somehow, the world had gone back to a rhythm he could follow.

In the end, he never passed his degree, and after the deaths of their parents he followed Evy to Cairo. To him, Egyptology was the promise of treasure and easy ventures; any corpses involved were much too ancient to look remotely human, and at their worst smelled musty with a hint of incense. Imhotep had been the first mummy Jonathan had been afraid of.

And now… Nothing had happened. Nothing so earth-shattering, anyway. The big battle had been fought, and won; they had saved the world, and he had even had a hand in it somehow.

There had just been that sudden searing pain in the middle of his back, driving all air from his lungs and all energy from his body; Evy’s eyes, even more familiar than his own, dark with worry then desperation; then nothing.

Nothing he remembered, anyway.

Why on earth that particular nothing rattled him more than two years of death and trenches had was an utter mystery to him.

Jonathan made to bury his hands in his pockets, wishing – not for the first time – he had his hip flask and something strong in it.

…The pockets of his jacket were full. Frowning, he dug in to investigate.

What he took out made his eyes widen. There was a small green gemstone, maybe some kind of beryl; a little medallion – late 18th century, probably; a lapis earring; a gold coin that looked remarkably like a Napoleon1 but bearing so many tiny teeth marks that the French emperor’s head was practically unrecognisable…

The pygmy mummies’ stash. _Of course_.

Jonathan stuffed the objects pell-mell back into his pockets. He would think about that later.

There was a shuffle behind him; he turned to see Evy let go of the tent flap.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly. “You’ve been gone some time.”

“Have I? Sorry about that, I just…” He ran out of words and made a vague gesture. “You know. Needed some air, sort of.”

She didn’t comment. Instead, she sidled up to him, slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and laid her head against his shoulder. Somehow it was the most natural thing in the world for Jonathan to complete the movement and take his little sister in his arms.

Her head found its old place against his, her chin on his collarbone. She only was four inches shorter than him – had been for decades.

The evening was soft and cool, the light turning bluer and bluer as the sun sank. In the silence he heard Evy sniffle a little.

“Please don’t die again,” she whispered. Jonathan smiled.

“Never. In fact, tomorrow I’m off to waking up old Imhotep to ask him how a fellow can go about making himself immortal without resorting to curses and flesh-eating scarabs.”

There was a somewhat watery giggle near his ear.

“Idiot.” She shifted a little and drew him closer. “…I lost you, Jon.”

Jonathan tried, unsuccessfully, to swallow the lump in his throat. Then he closed his eyes and gave a small smile.

“Well, old mum, I’d say that makes us even.”

Silence fell, comfortable, familiar, reassuring. The world kept turning, its axis a little less askew.

Maybe it _would_ be all right, after all. Later.

Evy broke away to wipe her eyes, her smile a little bit wobbly still. He gently bumped his forehead against hers and chucked her under the chin to make her laugh. Amazingly, it worked.

“Are you going back inside?” she asked.

“No, I already know the story. I’ll just ask Tom later for the details I missed.”

“All right. Well, I am. Rick will want to –” Evy’s eyes went round. “Oh, my goodness, _Rick_. He has no idea you’re alive.”

Jonathan looked at her, dumbfounded. Then a crooked grin pulled at his lips.

Evy frowned at him.

“Don’t you dare,” she said severely. “Your death hit him badly, you know.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Ardeth said he went to the dirigible?”

Evy shook her head with a badly-hidden smile and gave him the directions to where Izzy had parked his new contraption. Jonathan barely remembered what it had looked like on his escape from the pyramid; he had seen the sky, he had seen Evy, and that was what he had run towards. The dirigible itself had been an afterthought.

When he caught sight of the machine, he let out a low whistle. So _that_ was where Izzy had spent his part of the money from the Diamond of Ahm Shere. Not bad at all, he thought.

The dirigible was sleek, light-grey, with an actual set of cabins inside instead of just a wheelhouse. Without the balloon looming above, it looked like the top of a modern2 ocean liner might have looked if the goal had been aerodynamics instead of piling deck upon deck like a plate of crêpes.

Jonathan ambled closer, looking around for his brother-in-law, and heard his voice from the dirigible.

“…believe you told her about Beni Mellal.”

“I left out the good bits, don’t worry. But I had to mention the donkeys.”

Rick and Izzy were sitting on the bench along the rail, a small whiskey glass in hand. What Jonathan could see of Rick’s face was drawn, tired, as though he hadn’t slept in a month. It immediately obliterated any tongue-in-cheek remark he could think of.

The silver teeth in Izzy’s grin gleamed white in the falling darkness. Rick shook his head with a wry smile.

“I’m sure she appreciated the mental picture. You know, you looked real cute sitting on your ass like that.”

“Ha bloody ha, O’Connell. Too bad Lachkar didn’t agree. Remember, we were supposed to fence him that bracelet? And he sent his goons after us ‘cause we didn’t have it?”

“Yeah, well, we could’ve done worse. And we got out all right, didn’t we?”

“_Almost_ all right. I still got that scar right here. And see, that’s the thing with you, O’Connell – do all your friends eventually _have_ to get shot at some point or is it just m—”

Rick went absolutely white. Izzy abruptly cut himself off, looking stricken.

“Oh, shit.” He ran a hand over his face, then took off his pilot’s hat and rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry, O’Connell. I didn’t… That, er, that was dumb.”

“I’ll say,” Jonathan said in a low voice, unable to stop himself. “And uncalled for.”

Izzy dropped his shot glass, which bounced on the deck with a small _tink_. Rick whirled round and stared at Jonathan, a myriad of expressions on his face.

“_You_—!” Izzy shouted, pointing a trembling finger at Jonathan. “You were dead! You died! I mean – I saw – _dead!_”

Jonathan shrugged.

“I got better,” he said, for want of an intelligent reply. Then, as Izzy’s finger hadn’t moved and Rick was still frozen where he sat, he climbed up the ladder onto the deck and glanced at the bottle they were sharing. An eight-year-old Glenmorangie. Izzy had unexpectedly good taste. “Got room for one more?”

Izzy gaped at him. Then he came closer, almost right under his nose, and stared. Hard.

“And why should I give perfectly good Scotch to a dead man?”

_Because this particular dead man has been in need of a stiff drink for a week, that’s why_.

Jonathan returned his stare and sighed.

“I think the real question is ‘why shouldn’t you?’”

Izzy half-glared, half-squinted at him for another handful of seconds. Then he nodded, looking thoughtful.

“Okay, that’s fair. Wait here,” he added, picking up his glass and wiping it on his grimy sleeve, “I’ll get another.”

Jonathan had no idea whether he meant another glass or another bottle, and to be truthful didn’t really care either way. He remained where he was, his hands in his trouser pockets, while Rick stared at him, unblinking, as though looking at a ghost.

Which wasn’t exactly far-fetched, as comparisons went.

What _was_ one supposed to say, really, in circumstances like these?

“Hello, Rick,” Jonathan said quietly. “Smashing to see you, old boy.”

At long last, Rick blinked. Then he downed his entire glass in one gulp, blinked again, and his eyes finally gained some focus. When he spoke – slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully – his voice came out a little bit strangled.

“Evy, Alex, or both?”

Jonathan couldn’t help a smile.

“Alex. Turns out Tom accidentally salvaged the Book of the Dead from that bloody pyramid.”

“The Book of the –” Rick stopped, then squinted up at Jonathan, eyebrows climbing up. “‘_Accidentally_’?”

“What can I say? The bloke has always loved his books. He thought it was a tablet with a poem on it.”

“A _poem_…”

Rick jumped to his feet, startling Jonathan, and grabbed him by the arms to peer into his face, as though searching for something. Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it, because Jonathan found himself on the receiving end of a patented O’Connell grin – the huge, beaming, four-hundred-teeth kind of smile.

“Damn, it really _is_ you,” he exclaimed. The genuine warmth in his voice wasn’t unusual – what was unusual was how much of it there was. Jonathan smiled, a trifle awkwardly.

“In the flesh. And the… rest of it, I suppose. I’m happy you’re all right too, by the way.”

“Well, I am now.” Rick almost clapped him on the back, but seemed to change his mind at the last minute, his face serious again. “You might want to, uh, change your jacket.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s got… well. Something on it.”

Jonathan looked at him, curious, then shrugged off his jacket – mindful of the contents of his pockets – to take a look at the back of it. From the face Rick made, the shirt underneath had the same problem.

His once clean, dapper cream-coloured jacket had a large stain in the back, mostly brown, a little lighter where the blood had smudged the fabric instead of soaking it. Almost in the middle was a small hole.

Jonathan stared at the hole in the cloth until it felt like nothing else existed. A bullet had actually pierced that jacket, his shirt, and his back, and had ended his life. There was no way around that. It had been quite abrupt, rather pointless, as deaths went – almost an afterthought. He could brush it off or joke about it as much as he could, but the fact remained that without Alex… Without Tom… Without the Book…

By all accounts he shouldn’t be alive.

His face must have lost a significant amount of colour, because the next thing he knew, Rick was gently taking the jacket from his hands and replacing it with a full glass of Scotch. Jonathan – like Rick had – emptied it in one gulp. The Glenmorangie deserved better treatment, certainly more respect, but circumstances called for something radical.

Rick traded back the jacket for the glass, sat down on the spot Izzy had vacated, and shook his head.

“I can’t believe I didn’t even notice you’d gotten shot,” he muttered, making Jonathan wonder how much it had been eating at him. “When did that happen?”

Jonathan sat heavily next to him and leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees. “I honestly have no idea. After we stopped, but before we got out?” Then, as Rick stared at him, “No, seriously. I only noticed something was wrong when we were on the dirigible.”

And then it had been all he could think about.

To his surprise, Rick looked pensive as he looked at the bottom of his empty glass.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it happen a few times. I saw a guy once go a good five minutes without noticing his left hand had been blasted off because he was so hell-bent on whatever he was doing.” He raised his eyes back to Jonathan. “While you were… When you got, y’know, _back_… You didn’t pick up someone else’s memories, did you? No past life, or something? How many people you got, up there?” he said, tapping his temple.

Jonathan smiled despite himself, a little ruefully.

“Just me, I’m afraid.”

“Good.”

There was a lot to unpack in that one word. Jonathan decided to store it safely in his head to sort it out later, like the contents of his pockets, like whatever had happened between the moment his life had faded to black to the one he had woken up abruptly, bound in cloth from head to toe, half out of his mind with residual terror and almost suffocating. All of that could wait.

When Izzy got back, they ended up polishing half the bottle before their host took off again, this time to organise the sleeping arrangements. Naturally, Evy and Rick got a bunk to themselves, looking for all the world like they wouldn’t let go of each other for days – rather like the return from Ahm Shere; Jonathan got a one-bunk cabin to himself and almost cried with joy at the thought of sleeping on an actual bed with an actual mattress instead of a carpet thrown on the sand and a blanket that smelled of camel or petrol; Izzy had a cabin of his own.

And Alex… Alex was supposed to sleep with his parents, but somewhere around eleven, Jonathan heard the door handle of his cabin jiggle, followed by the sound of feet padding across the floor.

Alex dropped his mattress and covers next to Jonathan’s bunk, rubbing his eyes. He must have thought his uncle asleep, because he gave a start when Jonathan mumbled, “What’s the matter, Alex?”

“Can’t sleep,” the boy muttered. “And I can hear Mum and Dad talk. Y’know, whispering and things.”

Jonathan knew for a fact that Alex could sleep through a thunderstorm and a snoring Rick with a head cold. If a few whispers kept him awake, the state of things was bad indeed.

“Well,” he said, “you’re welcome to share my humble abode. Are you sure you’ll be quite comfortable down there, though?”

“I brought my mattress, Uncle Jon. It’s actually nice.”

“If you insist…”

Once Alex was cosily nestled under his blanket, he looked up at Jonathan, eyes wide open and bright in the dark.

“Uncle Jon? Did I wake you up?”

“I should say so. Oh, you mean right now?”

Alex stared at him, shocked, then dissolved into snorting giggles.

“That’s not _funny_!”

Jonathan replied with a smirk that evolved into a smile.

Sometimes he saw Evy, Rick, and Alex every day, and sometimes he didn’t see them for two or three weeks in a row. The last time he had talked with his nephew had been last Friday, but somehow he had missed their little conversations more in the past week than he had the last time Evy and Rick had taken Alex with them on a month-long dig.

Silence fell, comfortable despite the unusual surroundings. The cabin still smelled slightly like paint; the balloon rustled above them and a slight breeze sang in the ropes tethering it to the rest of the airship. It felt a little like being on a docked boat without the gently swaying sensation that could turn one’s stomach more easily than a three-foot swell.

“Uncle Jon?” came Alex’s hesitant whisper in the dark.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry I thought you were a mummy.”

“You thought I—” Jonathan blinked at the ceiling, then rolled on his side to stare at his nephew. “A _what?_”

“When I… When you woke up earlier. You had a blanket over you, I didn’t know you were all wrapped up in that white stuff.” Alex bit his lip. It wobbled a little, and so did his voice. “I got scared I’d got the spell wrong. I kinda yelled, too.”

“Oh…” That part had, admittedly, been a bit of a nightmare, and would probably fuel his for a number of nights to come. But at least he _had_ woken up. “That’s all right. You did a great job. If you _had_ got the spell wrong I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, would I?”

“I guess not,” said Alex pensively.

Jonathan watched him cogitate for a few seconds, heart brimming with affection. If someone had told him, about a dozen years ago, just how amazing being an uncle could be, he’d have laughed in their face – and he would have been a prize idiot.

Alex looked at him again, frowning a little.

“Uncle Jon?”

“Yes?”

“Did you… Did you _see_ something? When you, er… You know.”

_When I died_.

That kind of thinking would take some getting used to.

“I mean, pearly gates and whatnot. And a city with streets of gold, like they said in Sunday school.”

Jonathan thought about it, then gave a small shake of his head.

“Saw nothing of the kind, I think. It’s still awfully fuzzy up here, to tell the truth.”

Alex gave him a long, hard look, as though he wanted to stare the mystery out of him. Then he grinned, bright eyes twinkling in the darkness.

“Always knew you were going to hell, Uncle Jon.”

Jonathan shook his head. Then he snorted. Then he laughed out loud.

A few minutes later, as Alex’s eyes started to flutter closed, he reached down to ruffle his hair gently.

“Thank you, Alex,” he said quietly.

Alex’s only reply was to close his hand on his pinkie and his ring finger.

He didn’t let go all night.

* * *

Tom hadn’t closed his eyes all night.

Actually, that was a lie. He had _tried_ to sleep; had tried closing his eyes and letting go of every conscious thought; had tried telling himself that everything – the awful trip, the nightmare inside the pyramid, Jon being dead – was over. Sure, he had no idea what would happen from now on, whether Liz was all right, whether he would still have a job back in England, but…

Or maybe it was not _that_ surprising he hadn’t slept, after all.

He gave up trying to sleep as a bad job some time before dawn and left the tent.

Jon and the O’Connells had retreated to the dirigible for the night; the tent Tom had found them in had been left for him, furnished with a few cushions and a blanket. It wasn’t the cosiest digs, but he had slept in worse conditions, and he appreciated the unexpected freedom he’d been granted.

The desert was cool, the camp mostly silent. A few Medjai stood around some of the tents, probably watching over important people or prisoners. Most of the others appeared asleep; as Tom walked along the rows of tents, though, he could make out quiet sobs and whispered words of people in mourning. The fire rings were dead and cold, and a chilly breeze meandered around the tents.

He made inquiries after Hamilton, only to be told that his state remained unchanged. Then, moved by a strange, morbid curiosity, he asked whether Gabriel Baine was still alive, and got a complicated twist in his gut when told he indeed was.

It was that feeling he followed up on a little later, at a more reasonable hour, just before sunrise. Baine was kept in a tent with a few other prisoners. The Medjai guarding it must either know him by sight or have received instructions, because when Tom asked if it was possible to see Baine for a minute, he was let in.

It was warmer inside the tent. The cloth blocked the wind and kept the body heat of the half a dozen people inside. A few were still asleep, and Tom couldn’t help but resent them a little for that. Baine, though, was wide awake, and stared at him as he entered.

“Well,” he said. “Look who finally got caught. Did you get here by way of the infirmary?” he added with a jerk of his chin towards Tom’s bandaged hands. “Or did you just get lost in that pyramid looking for a way out? That would be more your style.”

One of the hit squad sniggered. Tom ignored him.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

Baine rolled his eyes. “I’ve always known you were thick, Ferguson, but if you can’t understand a simple joke –”

“I mean why did you follow Hamilton once it was clear he was no longer fit to be in command? You could have done literally anything, and what did you do? Order your men to kill Jon, O’Connell, and then me. Why?”

“Because I am a professional,” Baine huffed. “Unlike you, apparently, I can follow orders. And my orders were clear: assist Hamilton in any capacity and get rid of any obstacle he might encounter.”

“_Get rid of_ – in what world does that mean murderin’ people!?”

“Oh, grow up, you naive twit. How do you think half the artefacts we’re protecting ended up in our custody?”

Tom’s jaw dropped open. Baine made a face.

“Oh, I know you agents upstairs like to call us ‘the hit squad’, but what do you think we _do_? Ask nicely? Discuss prices over tea? We all do our bit for the Crown, Ferguson. You get to push paper, I get to actually move things along, and the Empire gets to make the world turn like it always has.”

Tom closed his mouth with a snap and shook his head instinctively.

“Don’t give me that rubbish,” he growled. “Hamilton wanted to unleash an army of undead jackal soldiers on the world because he thought they would listen to him and only kill a few select people. What was _your_ angle? And don’t tell me it was ‘orders’. I don’t think you’ve ever obeyed a single order you didn’t want to.”

“You know, you’re right. That’s why Hamilton was such a good boss: he never gave me a single order I didn’t want to obey.” Baine unexpectedly shifted from a glower to his customary smug smile. “He knew it would be useless to explain to you that people like O’Connell and Carnahan couldn’t be allowed to live. Nothing had to be traced back to him, you understand? Whether he was successful or not. _That_ is why he put me in charge in case something happened to him. Because, unlike wet idiots like you, I was willing to make the hard choices without knowing whether I’d be rewarded or not. Now _that_ is loyalty. Not that you’d understand that.” And, just as Tom opened his mouth to tell him exactly what he thought of his ‘loyalty’, he added as an afterthought, “Shame about your wife, though.”

Tom’s stomach dropped. In the space of a second he had lost all feeling in his limbs, and his head was spinning.

“_What_ about her?” he asked, suddenly breathless.

Baine shrugged.

“Well, you didn’t think they intended to keep her in that basement for ever, did you? I did say nothing had to be traced back to Hamilton in the end. She served her purpose well before O’Connell and Carnahan did. Collateral damage, you might say.”

A red mist seemed to fall in front of Tom’s eyes, like a curtain.

Next thing he knew, three agents were on top of him, trying to pull him away from Baine, who looked as though he had picked a fight with a steamroller and lost. Then he felt the edge of a cold blade on his Adam’s apple and stopped short.

“I let you in to talk,” hissed the Medjai who had been on guard duty outside in Arabic, “not attack our prisoners. You will leave this tent and not come back, is that clear?”

The blind rage was leaving Tom in waves, gradually replaced by nausea and the sensation that his heart was hammering on the top of his stomach. The dark tent felt suffocating all of a sudden. He stumbled out, seeking out air and the open sky, and started running, only stopping when he had passed the outskirts of the Medjai camp.

The sun had started rising on his right, making the dunes look soft and blurred, stretching out their shadows. The wind was still cold. Tom shivered without noticing, too busy gasping for breath and trying to keep his mind from spiralling.

Liz and her sweet smile, her surprisingly sharp humour, her frizzy dark red hair, her off-key humming, her gentle heart and all-encompassing love…

“No,” he moaned, “no, you didn’t… They couldn’t…”

Through the ringing in his ears came a strange sound, like a rumble, and he raised his eyes to the horizon, where a cloud of dust was rising.

Tom, worn down to the very bone, weighed down by sorrow, stared at the cloud and wondered what the universe was throwing at them this time.

One minute later, he found himself in the centre of a desert race as lorries and cars roared past him and towards the camp, leaving him gaping, wide-eyed, unable to comprehend what was happening. In the midst of his shock he barely registered a car pulling up roughly in the near distance, with the passenger making wild gestures at the driver.

But he heard someone call his name. His eyes followed the sound.

Through the dust, he saw a figure scramble down from the car still in motion, somewhat hampered by the skirt twisting around her legs. The woman made a couple of striding steps, then stopped, shucked her shoes, and ran towards him.

“_TOM!_” he heard, and the sound of the one voice he never expected to hear jolted him out of his dark daze. “Tom, it’s me – oh, darling, I can’t believe I –”

And then she was there, throwing her arms around him, her frizzy hair all over the place, her hazel eyes large and luminous in her dust-streaked face. Her body was warm and full of life, and – incredibly, inexplicably – _right there_. Tom buried his face in her hair, eyes wide open, shaking badly, while Liz – prim, self-conscious Elizabeth Ferguson, who blushed when he kissed her in public – frantically ran her hands on his sides, in his hair, all over his body, as if to make sure he wasn’t some kind of mirage.

“…around the pyramid and thought the _worst_ – but then there were people with swords and things almost got silly because Lieutenant-General Wilkins _insisted_ on drawing weapons, but then they told us were this camp was and there you were, oh Tom, thank _goodness_ you’re all right – Tom? Love, _are_ you all right?”

Something snapped in the vicinity of Tom’s brain. His legs liquefied and he dropped on his knees like a sack of potatoes, his arms still around his wife’s waist, his head pressed against her stomach. The terror and anxiety that mounted every time he thought of Liz, the horrors in the Pyramid, Jon’s death and the Black Book, Baine’s awful nonchalance when he’d stated Liz had to be dead… Everything came crashing down on him like an avalanche, and he found himself sobbing convulsively, tears and snot dripping down, gripping Liz’s body like it was the very last thing that kept him anchored.

Hazily, he was aware of Liz kneeling down and shifting his grip so they were both sitting on the ground, wrapped around each other, practically entwined. The last cars passed them by, leaving them behind in a ball of dust, now slowly descending.

“I love you too,” she whispered, and her smile shone through her own tears.

* * *

1Gold coin issued under Napoleon I. The 20 francs coin was 2 centimetres in diameter and weighed 6,45 grams (0,23 ounces), including over 5,8 grams of pure gold.

2Modern, i.e., the 1930s. But still applies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn’t really think I’d let my favourite terrible lad stay dead, did you? ;o) And real talk, how many of you had forgotten about Elizabeth? Wouldn’t blame you if you had, it’s been 14 chapters (and, depending on if you read chapter 15 when it was first published, almost 14 years)!


	23. Jurisdiction Friction

The fleeting moment before Evelyn truly woke up was pure bliss. Her whole family was alive and safe, and she was lying in Rick’s arms, practically on top of him despite the bunk being quite large enough for two, listening to his heartbeat and feeling his thumb softly caress her shoulder.

There was a knock on the door, a murmur, and the moment was over. Evelyn heard Rick’s sharp whisper of “What d’you _mean_, ‘an army’?” and woke up for good.

The day only got weirder from there.

Rick went off to investigate this new development while Evelyn went in search of Alex, who seemed to have disappeared along with his mattress and blanket. She found all three on the floor of Jonathan’s cabin, uncle and nephew fast asleep and snoring softly. Jonathan’s right arm was dangling from his bunk; Alex had grabbed hold of two of his fingers and still held them tightly. Evelyn decided against waking them up, and closed the door with a fond smile.

Outside the dirigible, it was chaos, or something approaching it. Soldiers in British Army uniforms alighted from cars and lorries and stood awkwardly between the rows of tents, while Medjai grabbed their weapons, most half-dressed and some still swathed in bandages.

The air was growing thick with tension when a stout man sporting the crossed swords and crown of a Lieutenant-General and in possession of a truly impressive moustache stopped in front of Evelyn and said in a booming voice, “You there, madam – could you tell all these people to stand down? We do come in peace, you know.”

Evelyn stared at him, unsure why he had singled her out, before realising she was the only white person around.

_Oh, for God’s sake_.

“I’m not in charge here, Lieutenant-General,” she said coolly. Spotting Ardeth making his way through the onlookers, she pointed at him and said, “_He_ is.”

Somewhat to her surprise, the officer saluted, and smartly at that.

“Lieutenant-General Douglas Wilkins,” he said, “in charge of the British garrison at Fort Brydon.”

Ardeth stared at him with narrowed eyes. Despite the early hour and the accumulated fatigue, he stood tall, back and shoulders straight, every inch the Commander.

“Ardeth Bay, High Commander of the Twelve Tribes of the Medjai,” he said gravely. “What are you and your men doing here?”

Lieutenant-General Wilkins plopped a hand behind his back and curled the tip of his moustache.

“Well, it’s rather a long story –”

He was interrupted by a tall, thin man who came running in, glasses balancing precariously on the tip of his long nose.

“Lieutenant-General,” he panted, “please stand your men down and make it clear that you’re not in fact an invading army.”

“You don’t say!” said Evelyn, biting sarcasm bubbling up. The newcomer looked at her, adjusted his glasses, and looked at her again.

“Dr Evelyn O’Connell, I presume? Samuel Lyall-Hughes, First Secretary to the British Ambassador in Cairo.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.

“Would that be the actual British Ambassador in Cairo, or a front for something more… disreputable? We _have_ dealt with imposters claiming they were from official British organisations before.”

Lyall-Hughes shook his head. “I assure you, my claim is quite genuine. When we are in Cairo again I can show you my credentials with the Prime Minister’s signature. Baldwin’s, I mean, not Chamberlain’s, but I’m sure it will do. Commander Bay?” he added, turning to Ardeth and extending his hand. “It’s an honour. I’m sorry to barge in like this uninvited.”

Ardeth looked at the proffered hand as if it were an unknown species of snake, but shook it, still looking wary. Around them, people lowered their weapons, and the tension went down a notch.

“What are you doing here?” Ardeth asked, looking at Wilkins and Lyall-Hughes in turns.

Wilkins huffed, clearly miffed about being so badly snubbed.

“I was starting to ask myself the same question, actually.”

“It came to our attention,” Lyall-Hughes said smoothly, “that citizens of the British Crown were enmeshed in, um, a little bit of a situation here.”

Evelyn crossed her arms.

“You might call it that. Or you might also call it theft, kidnapping, attempted murder, and tampering with forces beyond our understanding.” Then, as Lyall-Hughes opened wide eyes, “The question is, what made you come _here_? Did someone finally realise what Charles Hamilton intended to do?”

“Ah, no. Well, not as such.” Lyall-Hughes somewhat nervously adjusted his glasses. “You see, the British Consulate—”

“I told them,” said a woman’s voice in soft, cultured tones – the sort of careful Received Pronunciation that spoke of upper-middle-class. Evelyn whirled round.

The woman looked a little older than she was; her frizzy dark red hair had probably been deftly done and her clothes been prim and neatly pressed at some point, but now her entire person appeared worn, frazzled, and dirty. The way she held herself made it obvious she was tired but determined to stand her ground. She was holding on to Tom Ferguson, who in turn clung to her like she was a buoy and he on the brink of foundering. He had the strangest look on his face as he stared at her, awe and wonder mingled.

This answered a few questions and raised others at the same time.

Evelyn left Ardeth, Lyall-Hughes, and Wilkins to their discussion, and walked up to the couple.

“Mrs Ferguson?” she asked softly. “I’m Evelyn O’Connell.”

Mrs Ferguson smiled.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs O’Connell, although the circumstances leave a lot to be desired.”

“They do, don’t they?” said Evelyn with an impish grin she couldn’t hold back. “Likewise. And please, call me Evelyn.”

“Only on condition that you call me Elizabeth.” Mrs Ferguson – Elizabeth – stopped and looked at her with a soft smile. “I apologise for staring, it’s just – your brother talked about you so much, I feel I know you already.”

Evelyn thought about the merciless teasing she and Jonathan had thrown at each other over the years and fought back the urge to roll her eyes.

“I’m sure he had a lot to say,” she muttered. “So do I, when it comes to—”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You misunderstand me. I mostly remember him being exceedingly proud of his little sister.”

“…Oh.”

Evelyn felt heat rise in her cheeks. She opened her mouth, and, since words just didn’t seem to be forthcoming, closed it. Instinctively, her eyes sought Tom for confirmation.

Tom still looked as though he had smacked right into a lamppost, but he nodded.

“Absolutely. Of course, on occasion he also said you liked to boss him around a little too much for your own good, but –”

Elizabeth elbowed him in the ribs, her eyes shining with laughter. “_Tom!_”

“Well, it’s true! But yes, Jon bragged about you a lot more than he complained.”

“He did complain, though, didn’t he?”

They were both smiling the same smile, tinged with the same amused fondness. It didn’t escape Evelyn’s notice that Tom – for all that he still appeared awe-struck by the unexpected presence of his wife – looked a lot more at peace. There was a softness to his features that hadn’t been there before.

_And by the way…_

“How on Earth did you get here?” Evelyn asked Elizabeth, who smiled wryly.

“Well, I was, er… kidnapped, I think the word should be – right off the street, in England – and brought here. I mean, in Cairo. I was held in a basement, and –” The hand that wasn’t around Tom flew to her mouth. “Oh, goodness gracious – your husband! Is he all right?”

Before Evelyn could answer, a baritone came up from behind her. “Hon? Ardeth’s calling in a big meeting in an hour, and he – um, hello. Who are _you_ again?”

Rick stood beside her, looking at Tom and Elizabeth, frowning, as though trying to place her face. Elizabeth stared at him. Then a smile lit up her face.

“Good morning, Mr O’Connell. You’re taller than I thought you would be.”

Rick stared back for all of five seconds, then his trademark toothy grin lit up _his_ face.

“Oh hey, Mrs Ferguson. Uh, right back at you, actually. What happened to you?”

“Well, as I was telling Evelyn here, I was kidnapped in England and put in a basement in Cairo – where we had that lovely conversation through the vent. You gave me a lot to think about, you know. I spent a couple of days trying to make sense of everything, and then, when one of those… agents, I suppose, came in to check in on me, I, um… grabbed his gun and turned it on him.”

She said that quickly, blushing like a shy schoolgirl who had got away with a particularly intrepid dare. Her freckles stood out across her nose.

Rick nodded appreciatively.

“That must have taken guts.”

“Guts I don’t have, but that young man didn’t know that. I marched him out of the basement and into the building proper – that’s where I found out we were actually in the British Consulate. I made him knock on the first door I could find with a rank that looked official and we ended up in Mr Lyall-Hughes’ office. The man – Mr Stephens, he said his name was – confessed everything he knew.”

“What did he know?” Evelyn asked.

“Almost everything, as it turned out. Mr Lyall-Hughes and his superiors were not happy about Charles Hamilton and his plan, as you can imagine. They gathered all the information they could find about the intended destination and called up troops from Fort Brydon, and… Well, here we are.”

“So it was you who called in the cavalry, huh.” Rick nodded. “Good timing. The Medjai were starting to wonder what to do with their prisoners.”

Evelyn agreed on that, although she couldn’t help thinking that the British Army’s presence might complicate matters more than it would simplify them. She looked at the little crowd of soldiers slowly trickling away to gather elsewhere, and in the flow of khaki spotted a familiar figure coming in from the opposite direction.

“I say, Evy – where the hell did all these soldiers come from? Please tell me they’re human, at least.”

Jonathan was obviously not fully awake yet but making a commendable effort. Rick looked at him, then at Elizabeth with a curious twinkle in his eyes, and to Evelyn’s surprise leant to whisper in her ear, “This should be good.”

“What do you –” began Evelyn, but her voice trailed off when Jonathan stopped in his tracks and just _stared_. His jaw dropped open and he went scarlet up to the hairline.

Elizabeth and Tom shared a smile. Then Elizabeth took one step forwards, and, quite graciously, extended a hand.

“Mr Carnahan,” she said courteously. “Lovely to see you again.”

Jonathan stared at her hand, then gazed down at his rumpled, dirty clothes. He made an awkward, half-hearted attempt at brushing off the dust and straightening his ruined jacket, then – probably recognising a losing battle when he saw one – just stood ramrod-straight with his chin up.

Evelyn, who had always seen her brother slouch and drape himself over the furniture like an overgrown cat since he had got out of grammar school, consciously or not, had to bite down a fit of laughter.

Jonathan took Elizabeth’s hand and – to Evelyn’s amused surprise – gave a quite correct bow. Then the unusual formality went out the window as he grinned what he probably thought was a roguish grin. The effect was marred by the fact that his face was still very pink.

“Lizzie, old girl! Fancy seeing you here.”

“It was ‘Miss McAllister’ before, and it’s ‘Mrs Ferguson’ now,” Elizabeth corrected with mock severity. Jonathan squinted at her.

“Well, it’s still ‘Jonathan’.”

There was a beat, then Tom snorted, then chuckled. So did Elizabeth and Jonathan, who closed the few steps between him and the couple and said, halfway between a delighted laugh and a whine, “I can’t believe you two didn’t invite me to your _wedding!_ Honestly, was I so hard to track down?”

“You were in Egypt, Jon”, Tom pointed out, “in the middle of the ruddy desert!”

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“You _could_ have bothered to send a telegram. Or a letter.”

“Well, we would have if you’d bothered to tell me your address!”

“Goodness me, Jonathan, your jacket – what—?”

“Bah, that’s nothing. Remember the time me and Tom sneaked into St Hilda’s?”

“You mean when you two went missing for almost a week because you got locked in a basement and savaged by a sheep?”

“It was a _ram!_ I mean, really –”

“C’mon,” said Rick with a laugh in his voice, pulling gently on Evelyn’s elbow.

“But –” Evelyn was highly intrigued by the conversation. She had been a young girl when Jonathan had gone off to Oxford, and he had always been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about whatever he had been up to whenever he got back home. Now, though, it was as if a window had opened on a wholly different world she knew precious little about, along with a side of her brother she had never been allowed to see, and both made her very curious.

Rick grinned.

“If it’s blackmail material you’re after, I’m thinking you already have enough on your brother to last a long, long time, am I right? Besides,” he added with a smile and a jerk of his chin, “they obviously have some catching up to do.”

“Oh, all right.”

Evelyn reluctantly followed Rick; the trio, lost in memories, laughter, and updates on recent events and each other’s lives, didn’t even seem to notice she was gone.

* * *

The meeting Ardeth had called was to take place in the same tent Evelyn had witnessed the Council of Elders, two nights ago. At the entrance, she and Rick met Ineni, who was hopping along with the aid of a cane, her right leg bandaged from knee to ankle.

“It’s nothing,” she said when she saw their stricken expressions. “Just a little souvenir from the Warriors of Anubis.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” said Evelyn, noting the little lines of pain around her mouth that hadn’t been there the last time they had seen each other.

“Thanks for taking care of Alex yesterday,” Rick said. “And sorry we had to impose on you. If I’d known…”

Ineni shook her head with a smile. “Nonsense. He’s a sweet boy, and he was heartbroken. You didn’t impose in any way.” She stopped, and asked, a little hesitantly, “Is it true, what Ardeth told me? That Alexander found the Book of the Dead and brought back Jonathan with it?”

“He did,” answered Evelyn, unable to keep the pride from her voice. Ineni nodded, looking pensive.

Rick’s eyebrows went up a notch.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not too happy about that?”

“No, I am – I really am. Jonathan is a good friend and I’m glad he is still with us. But the Book…” Her long black eyes came to rest on the tent, their expression sad. “We lost many people to Anubis’ Army two nights ago. Family, friends. It would be so easy to bring them back, but – we can’t. It would be a… a soapy slope?”

“A slippery slope,” murmured Evelyn.

“Yes, thank you. Last night Ardeth and I agreed to keep it a secret from everyone but the Elders and the Chieftains. How could we decide who lives and who dies? Who can be brought back, and who can’t?” Ineni had to stop, her eyes very bright. “No-one should have that kind of responsibility. Even if…” She inhaled sharply, with just the hint of a sniff, and let out a shaky breath. “Anyway. Um. Not a word about the Book during the meeting, please. We don’t want outsiders to know. Things are complicated enough.”

“Of course,” said Rick in a low voice, while Evelyn nodded, her throat tight. She held the tent flap for Ineni and entered after her, Rick following behind without a word.

Inside the tent, there were half as many people as there had been during the previous council. Ardeth, Ineni, Atifa, Lyall-Hughes, and Lieutenant-General Wilkins sat on the same colourful cushions, the last two looking slightly ill-at-ease. Presently they were joined by Tom, Elizabeth, and Jonathan; when they were all settled, Ardeth stood up to introduce everyone, then said, “Before we begin, I will state that this meeting is purely off the record. This is not the Council of Elders or the Gathering of Chieftains, only different parties coming together for the sake of diplomacy.”

“Absolutely,” said Lyall-Hughes smoothly. “This is not Geneva and we are not the League of Nations, either. May I have the floor, please?”

Ardeth gestured wordlessly. Lyall-Hughes sat as dignified as he could on his cushions and cleared his throat.

“First of all, I’d like to thank Commander Bay here for welcoming us into his camp and allocating this space for negotiations –”

Evelyn, feeling that this had the potential to go on for a long time, interrupted him. “Yes, Mr Lyall-Hughes, we’re all very grateful here, but as you said, this is not Geneva. The point, if you please.”

Lyall-Hughes gave her a calculating look. Then his gaze went back to Ardeth.

“Quite. Well, then, I would like to ask Commander Bay when he intends to release the prisoners. They are citizens of the Crown and we would like to repatriate them.”

Ardeth evenly returned him his look.

“We did not intend to keep them forever. The Medjai are guardians, not jailers. But,” he added severely, “directly or not, they are responsible for the death of over a thousand of our people and would have caused the end of the world if not for the O’Connell family. Will they face justice once they are in England?”

Lyall-Hughes looked uncomfortable, and this time the unorthodox seating arrangements seemed to have nothing to do with it.

“Oh, well,” he said, “this is of course very unfortunate, but what kind of court would judge them? And what would the charges be?”

“How about treason and violation of the Pact of Paris1?” Tom said hotly. “Charles Hamilton himself told me he’d used his rank and experience in the Chamber of Horus to secure contacts in the government of Nazi Germany. He intended to use a supernatural army as private mercenaries against an entire nation, for Christ’s sake!”

Lyall-Hughes made a dismissive gesture.

“Charles Hamilton is currently in a state of… shock, for want of a better term, and as such cannot be held responsible for his past actions.”

“Bollocks!” cried Tom, now rather red in the face. “He started the whole thing! Without him, none of this would ‘ave happened! And now you’re tellin’ me he’s going to get away with everything?”

“Let’s say Hamilton’s brains _d__id_ get scrambled and he really can’t stand in court,” Rick cut in. “He had Baine, his right hand man – if he’s still alive – and dozens of flunkies. Ferguson here wasn’t the only one who said ‘the hell with it, he’s nuts’, but he’s the only one I know who actually _helped_ us take him down.”

Lieutenant-General Wilkins shook his head with what he probably thought was a genial expression.

“Come now, they were only following orders. Can’t fault them for that, can you?”

Atifa raised her hand. “The men we captured at the foot of the pyramid fought by our side,” she said dryly. “They went against their orders and decided to stand with us. They could have just let the Army of Anubis kill them while we died trying to protect them, or tried to escape and be killed anyway, but they didn’t.”

Rick made a ‘see?’ gesture in her direction, and continued, “Also, those guys are civilians, not soldiers. Right?” he asked Tom, a few seats over, who nodded. “Right. So the whole ‘following orders’ thing doesn’t carry the same weight. And second, remind me whose orders Hamilton was supposed to follow again? The guy _had_ to have someone above him, am I wrong?”

Lyall-Hughes suddenly became very interested in the creases in his tie.

“You see, the Chamber of Horus as an organisation is… not exactly what you would call ‘in the limelight’. Rather the opposite, you see, ‘off the books’ as one might say. Charles Hamilton’s province was the treasures of North Africa; others like him oversee other areas. There is a hierarchy above them, of course, but I am not at liberty to name –”

Evelyn narrowed her eyes at him. “The Chamber have their offices inside the British Consulate in Cairo, officially or not. Isn’t that right, Mr Ferguson?”

Tom was still glaring at Lyall-Hughes and Wilkins in turn, but nodded.

“We were supposed to be from the British Antique Research Department,” he said, “so as such the Consulate was a front in case outsiders needed to see offices. A lot of the work in Egypt was done from Giza, though, even if the premises were, er… less suitable.”

“Did the Consulate know about this?” Evelyn asked, pointedly looking at Lyall-Hughes.

The man didn’t squirm, but came close.

“What you must understand is –”

“_Did_ they?”

“Yes,” Lyall-Hughes all but snapped. “The senior attachés did, anyway. Hamilton had the deplorable habit of treating the Consulate as his own personal retreat whenever he was in Egypt.”

Rick crossed his arms.

“There you go. So even if his direct superior couldn’t see what he was up to, _you_ could. So either Hamilton went rogue, and that makes you incompetent, or he didn’t – and that makes you responsible.”

There was a pregnant pause. Wilkins looked at Rick, flabbergasted.

“Are you threatening a British citizen on British soil, sir?”

“This is not British soil,” Ardeth pointed out in a low voice. “Borders don’t mean anything in the desert, but we are a day’s walk south of Sudan. This is Abyssinia.”

“And Great Britain hasn’t recognised Italian authority over the Ethiopian Empire,” Evelyn said sharply. “So if you want to discuss Hamilton’s intended acts of war on foreign soil, I suggest you take it up with Emperor Selassie. I think he lives in Bath now.”

Lyall-Hughes took off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. “This is a diplomatic nightmare.”

Evelyn was unmoved.

“Look,” she said, using her most reasonable voice, “it doesn’t have to be. All we ask is accountability. The people who gave orders need to recognise they were bad orders, and the people who followed them need to realise they shouldn’t have.”

“Hear, hear,” piped up Jonathan. “Considering those orders included larceny, assault, kidnapping, and murder, I should say there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. How do you even recruit agents for that Chamber of yours? No offence, Tom,” he added with a quick look at Tom sitting next to him, “but most of the fellows I heard talking didn’t seem to find anything wrong with using Lizzie’s _life_ as leverage! How on Earth did it come to this!?”

“I should like to point out that if you want to discuss objectionable actions committed on British soil, I might as well speak up.” Elizabeth’s voice was low and somewhat hesitant, but it got stronger as she talked, her hand in her husband’s. “I live in Dorset. I was taken right off the street one morning on my way to work, drugged, and shipped off to Egypt where I was imprisoned for a week in the very basement of the British Consulate. I shall be very lucky if I still have a job when I get back home. So I’m seconding what Evelyn said about accountability. And I shall follow your career with great interest, Mr Lyall-Hughes.”

Lyall-Hughes stared at her with the look of a man who’d just been attacked by a mouse and found that it could, in fact, do some damage. Wilkins glanced at him, then at the company, a puzzled expression behind his moustache.

“Frightfully sorry to change the subject,” he said, “but I must have misheard something. There was a battle fought here, yes? We saw the signs, they were quite clear, and the commander mentioned losing a thousand men. Whom did you fight, exactly?”

“We fought the undead army Hamilton unleashed from the pyramid,” said Ardeth. “The Army of Anubis. Jackal-headed soldiers, seven feet tall, who can only be killed if you cut off their heads.”

Wilkins blinked.

“Sounds quite. Um. Quite fantastic, doesn’t it? Seven feet tall, you say? My word,” he said with a weak chuckle. “How imaginative. Are you sure you’re not having me on? Because that –”

Ineni, who had been silent so far and watched the proceedings, looking rather unimpressed, turned a scathing gaze on him.

“Foolish men released the jackal warriors two years ago,” she said in the hardest voice Evelyn had heard her use, “and we fought them. They cut my brother down and I held him as he died. Do you know how many brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, and children we lost this time? One thousand two hundred and eighty-nine, and that’s if the wounded all live. All because one fool thought Anubis’ Army would obey his orders. Doubt us if you want, but if you laugh, _‘uqsim biallah_2 –”

Evelyn froze. The few words she’d had with Ineni just before the meeting replayed in her mind, along with the repressed anguish in her voice. Agonising about the impossible responsibility something like the Book of the Dead brought was bad enough; but knowing that the difference between losing and keeping a loved one was, in essence, a question of timing was nothing short of wretched.

She had held her brother’s hand as he died, too. Even with Jonathan sitting in front of her now, tense and subdued but miraculously alive, this kind of memory left a mark she suspected would be indelible. Hence why she couldn’t bring herself to regret the reappearance of the Book. It was selfish, she knew, but she just couldn’t. Of course it heaped problems on an already difficult situation, and maybe it should have stayed lost, buried within Ahm Shere. But it had given her brother back to her, and for that she would be forever grateful.

Ineni broke off, and Ardeth looked at her. A lot passed between them through that look. Then his eyes came back to the assembly.

“What happened is this,” he said, staring at Lyall-Hughes and Wilkins in particular. “Charles Hamilton released Anubis’ Army and channelled its soldiers into the world. We held them back so they would not spread death and blood everywhere until Rick O’Connell and Jonathan Carnahan knocked out Hamilton and broke the connection. That is the truth; whether you believe it or not is moot. What matters is what you intend to do with Hamilton and the men who followed him.”

“Keeping in mind,” Evelyn pointed out, “that while the Medjai’s obligations keep them in Egypt, the rest of us will keep a careful eye on future developments.”

Lyall-Hughes’s eyes went from Evelyn and Rick to Elizabeth, Tom, and Jonathan, all of whom were watching him with stern expressions. He coughed in his hand.

“Yes, you’ve made that, er. Quite clear.”

“As long as we understand each other,” said Evelyn with the sort of smile she knew could cut glass.

From the looks of it, Lyall-Hughes was smart enough to not underestimate that sort of smile.

“As God is my witness,” he said solemnly, “I will go back to Cairo with the prisoners, then England, where there _will_ be trials. And I personally pledge to make sure the Chamber of Horus goes through a serious overhaul.”

“Good. Then we’ll be witnesses, as well.”

Evelyn met Lyall-Hughes’ gaze like her sword might cross an opponent’s. The man was a diplomat; his job was to smooth ruffles, cut corners, and leave a meeting with more than what he had brought. But he needed to understand just how serious they were. And whether or not he believed the admittedly unlikely notion of an entire army springing from the sands and sinking back into them at the drop of a hat, he _had_ to guarantee that nobody else would try to play around with dark forces.

They would need to gather evidence themselves, she knew. Collect testimonies, mostly, since nearly all of the concrete proof – like the Diamond, like the Pyramid itself – had collapsed and disappeared beneath the sand. Evelyn doubted it would take something as simple as shovels this time to uncover it. The Scorpion King had had his chance, mortals had had theirs, and when New Year’s Day had dawned Anubis had reclaimed everything.

The meeting was over; Lyall-Hughes left, followed by Lieutenant-General Wilkins, who saluted Ardeth uncertainly. Atifa, Tom, and Elizabeth waited a little before stepping out as well.

“Well,” said Rick beside Evelyn, slipping an arm around her waist, “I don’t think these guys will forget you in a hurry.”

“Good. I don’t want them to. Quite the opposite, in fact.” She glanced at Ineni, who was talking with Ardeth and Jonathan. “Did you know? About her brother.”

“Yeah, I did.” She turned to her husband, slightly surprised. “Last time we saw them, last winter? We were talking about this and that, me and Ardeth, and the subject came up at some point.”

Evelyn frowned. “Where was I?”

“You had your nose in a book. I think you were working on a translation of whatever you’d found that day, a tablet or a bas-relief or something.” Rick grinned, and Evelyn was seized by a mad urge to hold on to him and not let go. She had missed this so much – the low-pitched tone in his voice that came out for no-one else, the affectionate teasing, the smile with the special sparkle in his blue eyes…

She leaned into him and laid her head on the inside of his shoulder, relishing his warmth, his scent, the beat of his heart, everything she had been deprived of for the past week or so.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yes, it’s just…” Evelyn watched Ardeth, Ineni, and Jonathan across the tent, speaking in hushed tones. To her surprise, there was something conspiratorial about their conversation, and all three were smiling. “She lost her _brother_,” she said finally, her throat tight. “Only she didn’t get a second chance. But I did. It’s not… Well, it’s not fair, is it.”

“No, it’s not.” Rick laid his head on top of hers. “But you know what? I wake up every day happy I got my second chance with you. Life isn’t fair; sometimes we get lucky, and sometimes we don’t. Best we can do is enjoy the good while we can.”

Rick always was a _carpe diem_ kind of man, she reflected idly. While she usually was a little too focused on either the distant past or the near future to follow this line of reasoning, right now he made a very convincing point. She smiled into his chest.

“My husband, the philosopher.”

Rick snorted.

“Right. Like that was deep. C’mon,” he said, lowering his head to look into her eyes, “up you go. If I know you at all, you’re gonna want to question every single one of Hamilton’s men who survived before we go back to Cairo, and we can’t do it from here.”

Evelyn laughed softly. Then something crossed her mind, and she leaned back to look at him intently.

“You said ‘we’, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, of course. Did you think I was gonna let you do all the work? Lyall-Hughes is a politician, he’ll probably want to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. I don’t trust him any farther than I can throw him. So we’ll have to make sure everything’s done right.”

Something as round, as warm, and as bright as a miniature sun rose inside Evelyn’s chest. She bit her lip, and said with a smile she had to fight to keep steady, “Have I told you that I love you today?”

Rick was still grinning when she kissed him.

* * *

It took them a couple of days to get all the information they needed, and even some they didn’t. Rick could very well have done without the kind of oversharing some of the agents did; he suspected that a few of them laid it on a bit thick to try and make him forget they had been complicit in things like kidnapping and attempted murder. It almost felt like dealing with Alex when he’d done something especially stupid and tried desperately to hide it. The best way to handle them, as he figured out after a few ‘discussions’, was to let them talk, looking as deadpan as possible, and then say, “Okay, run that by me again, without the whining this time.” It took time, but it was worth it.

The last of Hamilton’s cronies he saw was Baine – a conscious choice on Rick’s part. The urge to eviscerate the guy had considerably calmed down since Jonathan’s resurrection, but he still itched to at least sock him in the mouth.

Only it looked like somebody had already beaten him to it, and in a big way.

“What happened to you?” Rick asked, eyeing the red and purple bruises decorating the guy’s face.

Baine shot him a baleful look.

“Like _that_ matters to you.”

“You’re right, but I’m curious. I know the Medjai didn’t do this, because they don’t beat up their prisoners, and they wouldn’t even let me beat you up, either.”

“Oh, poor you. I’m sure that must have been terribly vexing.”

Rick didn’t take the bait. In hindsight he was grateful that Baine hadn’t fallen into his hands after Jonathan’s death; much as the guy looked like a modern art painting now, he had a feeling he would have been a lot worse off had Rick been allowed to rearrange his face. The odd thing was that Baine didn’t even seem to realise that one of his – or his men’s – bullets had hit the mark and done the job. If he had, he would have gloated, Rick was sure of it. He had been insufferably smug during the whole trip with much less reason for it.

They had agreed the keep the Book of the Dead a secret, which meant Rick couldn’t bring up the true reason he had wanted to beat him up for. Oh, well. Maybe he could have his revenge in other, smaller ways.

“Not really,” Rick said as he sat down. “I had enough on my plate lately without wasting time thinking about you. Didn’t even know you got all –” he made a vague gesture “– tenderised. How’d that happen?”

Baine huffed.

“I… miscalculated.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Ferguson took me by surprise. The man is such a… Well, frankly, I didn’t think he would react this way.”

Rick squinted at him, thinking hard. “When was that?”

“Honestly,” said Baine, rolling his eyes, “it’s not that important –”

“It kinda is. When did Ferguson hit you, and what’d you say to him?”

“Oh, for – yesterday morning, just before dawn. He came in for a chat, and I got sick of his moralising, so I told him about his wife to shut him up.”

“What about his wife?”

Baine crossed his arms, looking irritated.

“Hamilton had a… contingency plan, if you will. To cover his tracks. Whether or not his project succeeded, Elizabeth Ferguson was – like you and your brother-in-law, incidentally – to be eliminated Thursday at dawn at the latest. She’s most likely dead by now. Granted, it was foolish of me, but I really didn’t think… Well.”

Rick nodded. Getting told that his wife was dead, after everything that happened? No wonder the poor guy had snapped. He shook his head.

“You really didn’t think, huh. Well, good news: she’s not dead. And she came here and brought in the British Army and a whole load of trucks, which means you won’t have to trek back to Cairo on a camel. Doesn’t that sound great? Now,” he said before Baine – who was gaping at him – could interrupt, taking out the notebook he’d been writing in for almost two days, “I didn’t actually come here to shoot the breeze. Why don’t you tell me everything you know about Hamilton’s plan, what happened, and so on?”

“And why should I do that?” Baine asked scathingly.

“Because the way I see it, authorities might want to forget the whole thing ever happened – and what do you think will happen to you if they decide to ‘cover their tracks’? Except we don’t want that. But we need leverage, and for that we need information. So,” he said, putting pen to paper and looking at Baine expectantly, “where do you want to begin?”

The way the guy glared at him made it clear that he loathed not just him, but also the fact that he was probably right. Rick allowed himself a couple of seconds to feel smug, feeling he had more than earned it.

Baine gave him a dark, suspicious glance.

“This might take some time.”

Rick shrugged. “There’s no hurry.”

It did take some time. Part of the reason Rick had kept him for last was that he had seen first-hand how much the smug bastard liked to hear himself talk. Given half a chance, he might start monologuing like there was no tomorrow – which was exactly what he did.

When they were done, Rick closed his notebook, got up, and walked out without looking back.

Baine, Hamilton, and their crazy plans belonged in the past. It was time he left them there.

The last night they spent in the Medjai camp Rick mostly spent drowsing and sleepily gazing at his wife in his arms, his eyes half-closed, his fingers ghosting along her bare arms. Insomnia struck every now and then since Ahm Shere, and he had found the best remedy was simply to make sure Evy was still there, warm and alive, with him. So he watched her, her soft curves, her lean muscles, and the small shadows her eyelashes cast on her cheeks. Every once in a while her brows furrowed into a frown and she made a small whimpering sound, and he stopped brushing against her skin and slowly caressed her arms and her back until her face relaxed. She’d had more nightmares than usual this past couple of nights. Understandable, considering everything that had happened.

Sometimes he wondered if she still dreamed of Ancient Egypt.

Like he was pretty sure _he_ did.

It didn’t happen often. Sometimes he would wake up in the morning with something on the edge of his mind, like the echo of a song he had vaguely heard before. Sometimes his dreams would be filled with rage and grief and the memory of Evy falling to her knees, a knife in her stomach – but it was a man who stabbed her, not Anck-su-namun. And sometimes he would hear the clash of blades, see a flash of laughing dark eyes, and feel the sense of steady companionship he usually associated with Ardeth.

That… was weird. He had never crossed swords with Ardeth. The one time they had actually fought, the first time they’d come face to face, Ardeth had his scimitar and he had a gun – and then a stick of dynamite when Ardeth knocked the gun from his hands.

Rick tended to ignore these dreams, and they were rare enough that they didn’t bother him. After all, Evy’s own past life memories had plagued her until they _had_ to go to that temple, _had_ to find the Bracelet of Anubis, and everything went downhill from there. No way in hell he would let something like that happen again because of some half-forgotten dreams.

Still, the next morning, while Izzy prepared the dirigible for the journey back and everyone was saying their goodbyes, he sidled up to Ardeth and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Ardeth – can I talk to you a minute?”

“Of course,” said Ardeth, looking slightly surprised. Rick rubbed the back of his neck and looked over to Evy, who was in lively conversation with Ineni, Tom, Elizabeth, and Jonathan. Alex was a few feet away, talking to Maira, who was looking unusually surly.

“Listen, uh… You know how Evy had dreams that were actually memories?”

Ardeth nodded solemnly.

“If I told you I had… Well, not exactly visions, but, y’know… things that don’t really make sense. As such.” He paused. “Would that be coincidence, or – aw, who am I kidding. It probably means the end of the world is gonna happen again soon, huh.”

Ardeth kept looking at him intently, as though trying to decipher something.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing?” At Ardeth’s insistent look he amended, “I mean, nothing clear. Like… Evy’s death, right? Only it’s a guy who stabs her, and I have no idea who he is. And… This is going to sound weird, but did we ever spar? You know, with swords, or scimitars?”

To his surprise, a smile dawned on Ardeth’s usually stern face. A real smile, with a flash of white teeth and the accompanying sparkle in his eyes.

“Not in this life, anyway.”

The sentence took some sinking in. Then Rick blinked and a faint smile pulled at one corner of his mouth.

“Huh. Well, how about that. So it’s not just me, then?”

“No, it’s not just you.”

“I have a… a previous life?”

“It certainly seems so,” said Ardeth, still smiling.

To be honest, Rick wasn’t so sure what to do with this information. Especially since Ardeth hadn’t said anything about a possible apocalyptic outcome.

Rick squinted at him and crossed his arms.

“Okay, spill.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where’s the catch? What’s going to happen if I dig into this? How do I know it won’t bring about the end of the world in the next decade?”

Ardeth shook his head. “You don’t,” he said. “But do you remember what I told you, two years ago? About embracing the missing piece of your past?”

Rick remembered, even if in the midst of everything – Imhotep’s return, Alex’s kidnapping, Evy’s almost-tumble from the dirigible and the ensuing conversation – he hadn’t really given Ardeth’s words much attention. Mostly because the concept of everything being already written or preordained thousands of years ago was foreign not just to his experience – as a soldier, then as a father, he had very intimate knowledge of just how unpredictable life could be – but also to his very nature.

Of course, things like that little business with the tattoo on his arm and the life-size ‘how to kill the Scorpion King’ instruction book did, like Evy said, tend to convert one.

“Whether you like it or not, whether you admit it or not, it’s a part of yourself. And you’ll have to make peace with that someday, my friend.”

“Yeah, I know.” Rick’s gaze was drawn, as always, to Evy, whose eyes found his and who smiled her wonderful crooked smile. “Just tell me something,” he added in a low voice. “I knew Evy, right?”

Ardeth stared at him. Then – unexpectedly – he grinned.

“Yes. You definitely knew Evelyn.”

Something about the way he said it sent blood rushing to Rick’s ears. He couldn’t help a grin that he knew from experience must look goofy as hell.

“It’s like that, huh? Wow.” Something cold hit the pit of his stomach, and his grin fell abruptly. “Hang on, she died – Nefertiri, she died… It didn’t end well, did it?”

“No,” said Ardeth, his voice heavy. “It didn’t. Do you want to know what happened?”

Rick was tempted to reply “Later.” Goodbyes were almost said, his family was waiting for him. But curiosity won.

“If you can make it short,” he said wryly. “I like a good story as much as the next guy and I know you like telling ‘em, but we don’t have time.”

The corner of Ardeth’s lips twitched. “All right. Well, a man called Narmer tried to steal the Bracelet of Anubis. Evelyn – Nefertiri – gave chase and retrieved it, but he murdered her, so you avenged her death with his.”

“And I was a Medjai?”

“We both were.”

Rick nodded slowly. Well, it certainly explained a lot. It raised a lot of questions, too.

“Next time,” he said, with feeling, “I’ll want more on that story.”

Ardeth’s grin lit up his face.

“Until next time, then, brother.”

“_ʾIlā l-liqāʾ_3,” said Rick, extending a hand for Ardeth to shake.

A lot passed in that handshake: trust, thanks, and the certainty that they would see each other again. It all settled into the back of Rick’s mind like a pillar of stone, the kind you knew you could lean on in times of need.

If this was the worst having a previous life could throw at him, he could live with it.

The dirigible was taking off. Rick climbed aboard, leaned over the rail, and called to Ardeth, “If you and your family want to come do some sightseeing in London one day, you know you’re always welcome, right?”

“Only don’t forget to call beforehand,” Jonathan cheerfully piped up beside him, “so as not to give us a collective heart attack.”

Alex snorted, and Evy swatted her brother on the arm. They were still low enough in the air to see Ineni laugh and Ardeth shake his head with a smile.

The Medjai camp fell away underneath them; the sky, already a deep, vibrant shade of blue, folded around them in a warm embrace. Evy kissed Rick as she passed and crossed the deck to go sit next to Jonathan, who was talking animatedly with Tom and Elizabeth; they made room for her on the bench and in the conversation, and soon all four were chattering away, the discussion punctuated by deadpan remarks and laughter.

Then his son plopped down on the seat next to him and gave him a would-be casual look from underneath his blond fringe.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Alex.”

Alex looked at his father, then in front of him, face puckered in a frown, chewing a little on his lower lip. Rick watched him, waiting for him to say what was on his mind. The boy was growing so fast, every day. His hair was lighter, as usual when he spent time in Egypt, but had he really been this tall last time they had seen each other in Cairo?

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you be mad at someone who’s mad at you for a good reason?”

_Wow._

Rick had figured out quickly enough – before Alex even started stringing actual sentences together, in fact – that being a dad was a package deal, and as such included the occasional hard question. As usual, he gave it some thought before answering.

“I guess that depends on the reason. Why?”

“Maira’s kinda mad at me. I think she’s mostly sad, though, ‘cause the Army of Anubis killed her uncle Tamer two years ago, and… Well. She didn’t get him back.”

The unspoken ‘like I did’ hung heavily in the warm air. Rick heard his son sigh, then felt his head bump against his arm. Alex didn’t protest when he pulled him against his side.

“She has a right to be sad,” he said softly. “Even angry. Sometimes it’s easier than being sad. Why were _you_ angry at her, though?”

“Because… Because she said that people die, and that’s it, and it’s dangerous to think you can bring them back. Like I brought back Mum and Uncle Jon. But they weren’t meant to die! So… I just fixed things.” He looked up, a mixture of defiance and uncertainty on his face. “Didn’t I?”

Rick didn’t have experience with other children. His Alex must be one of a kind; he was clever, kind-hearted, cheeky, an everyday challenge and an everyday reward. Rick had never, ever wished for a different kid, no matter how wrong-footed he had found himself on occasion, no matter how much he wished he’d been given all the answers beforehand.

Sometimes, though, he wondered what kind of hard questions other kids – kids who couldn’t read hieroglyphs and hadn’t raised people from the dead – asked their parents.

Rick drew his son closer and racked his brain for the right answer.

“People are never ‘meant’ to live or die,” he said in a low voice. “Sometimes they die and you don’t know why, sometimes they pull through and you don’t know why either. You were very lucky to have the Book of the Dead, and we’re all very lucky to have you. But Maira’s… she’s not exactly wrong.”

Alex broke off from the hug and threw him a look somewhere between hurt and outrage.

“No, hear me out. You can’t fix every death. You just can’t. It’s just… Life comes in different parts, right? Some good, some bad. The good can’t last forever, but then the bad can’t either, so it all adds up in the end.”

Alex’s glare faded to a pensive expression.

“That’s what Mum said the other day.”

“There you go.”

Alex went quiet, and silence fell, snug, comfortable. The dirigible glided along quietly in the strange floating space between earth and sky. They were well over the desert now, the Blue Nile snaking up northward. Behind them, in the distance, lay the stretch of green that was the tropical forests of Ethiopia.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

A glance down confirmed Rick’s impression: Alex was smiling, and not just any smile, either – the small crooked smile he’d gotten from his mother, which said the kid was feeling mischievous.

“I didn’t tell you how I stole Izzy’s dirigible, did I?”

Rick couldn’t help a chuckle. “Nope. So, how’d you do it?”

As Alex embarked into a lively tale, full of enthusiastic gestures and a couple of colourful words his father chose to let slide, something clicked in Rick’s head, like the last piece of a puzzle started a long time ago finally falling into place.

For the first time since the theft of the diamond – maybe even since they had left England – he realised he felt truly at ease.

* * *

1The Kellogg-Briand Pact, signed in 1928 by (originally) 15 countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan, officially renouncing the use of war to settle disputes and conflicts. Spoiler: it didn’t really work – partly because the states then just waged war without declaring it.

2(اقسم بالله), “I swear to/before God”

3(إِلَى اللِّقَاء), literally “to the encounter”, “Goodbye” / “See you later”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, with the exception of Tom, Lieutenant-General Wilkins is the only other character I have a face claim for, and that’s Stephen Fry playing General Melchett in _Blackadder Goes Fourth_, moustache and all. (Tom is basically a blond, brown-eyed Sean Astin with a bit of James Corden.)
> 
> Benito Mussolini, wanting a colonial empire, invaded the Ethiopian Empire (which bordered Italian Somalia and Eritrea) in 1935; in 1936 the country was annexed to form the Italian province of East Africa, and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie had to flee. FTaH is set in July 1937; at this point Great Britain, like Evy says, hasn’t recognised Italian authority over the Ethiopian Empire, but it will the following year (1938).
> 
> The little story about how Jonathan and Tommy somehow got themselves locked up in the basement of St Hilda’s College and “savaged by a ram” (and a ram it was, not a sheep!) pops up in chapters 5 (at the bazaar) and 15 (during the “road trip”). 
> 
> As for what happened between them and Elizabeth, well. I have my early 2000s version, which evolved a little bit with time and is rather different from the one I have now. One thing that hasn’t changed is that they all loved each other very much. 
> 
> So, dear reader of FTaH, I leave it entirely up to you: you can see 18 to 21 years old Jon and Tommy as having run around Oxford having little adventures and being idiots (and Elizabeth being quite fond of her disaster boys) – or you can see 18 to 21 years old Jon and Tommy as having little adventures, running around Oxford kissing each other (VERY secretly, as men could and were arrested for less at the time) and being idiots (that’s never changed, they were always idiots) and Elizabeth falling in love with her disaster boys, who reciprocated. So you can have 18-21 years old Jon/Tommy/Elizabeth as friends or as friends and lovers both. The main thing is that they all loved each other very much ♥


	24. Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tons and tons of love to Cat, who was there first; to Laurie, who was there after; to Emily, who’s been there for a dozen years now; to François, who’s been there the entire time; and to whoever is reading, has read, or will read this story. I really hope you enjoyed it.

_London, September 1937_

A little off Paddington Station, almost in Marylebone, was a small pub called the Stars and Crown, its red brick façade almost exactly similar to the others along the street. It was an unassuming little affair Jonathan liked to patronise every now and then, and not just because it happened to be situated not too far from his flat.

It was a balmy mid-September late afternoon and one of the double doors was wide open on the quiet street. Jonathan and Tom were seated by one of the stained-glass windows, drinking – G&T and a ginger beer, respectively – and talking. Jonathan, remembering the promise he’d made after blowing up Hamilton’s lorry, had bought the rounds.

But for small details like the mostly healed-over scratches on Tom’s hands, the old scar in Jonathan’s left palm, and all the subtler little ways the past two decades had changed them, they might as well have been twenty-year-old students again.

Well, apart from the subject of their conversation.

“I got off easy, if you ask me.”

“Nonsense. You were the only one who tried to fix this bloody disaster. It’s only fair that you didn’t… You know.”

“…Pay for my mistakes?”

“That is _not_ what I meant and you know it.”

Tom gulped a mouthful of ginger beer, still looking glum.

“I suppose – I _know_ – I should be grateful I didn’t end up like Hamilton, at least.”

Jonathan winced.

Charles Hamilton had made it back to England in a slightly better state than he had made it out of the pyramid, but that wasn’t saying much. From what they had heard, he was lucid for about an hour a day, and that was it – and not very coherent at that. Which made the fact that he allegedly hung himself in his cell a week before his highly sensitive trial very suspicious indeed. The man didn’t appear capable of putting on his trousers on his own, let alone do anything as complex as a slipknot.

The Lord Chancellor’s Department had issued a statement half-heartedly lamenting Hamilton’s demise, the newspapers had stayed surprisingly quiet about it, and Evy had fumed for an entire fortnight. And that had been it. Hamilton had taken the gentleman’s way out. Case closed.

At least Gabriel Baine had been tried, convicted, and sent behind bars for a lengthy period of time. Jonathan didn’t particularly care where he was, as long as _he_ could be elsewhere.

Baine had stated a few times that there hadn’t been anything personal about shooting and ordering his men to shoot Jonathan, Rick, and Tom. Jonathan had silently begged to differ. Baine’s shouts of “_Kill them_” followed by the sudden excruciating pain in his back, not to mention the confusion and terror as he fought not to die and lost, had felt pretty damn personal.

Tom stared into his glass for a while, then looked up with a brighter expression.

“But enough about this fiasco. How’s your family? I seem to remember your sister’s birthday was coming up, you were lookin’ for a present when we bumped into each other at that bazaar. Did you find one, in the end?”

Jonathan perked up. “I did, actually. Got her a signet ring. She seemed to like it.”

Now _that_ memory he would treasure as long as he lived.

An inventory of his pockets had revealed a hodgepodge of small trinkets which he was still trying to trace. The little medallion with the amethyst cameo must be early Regency, stolen by the pygmy mummies from some unfortunate Napoleon soldier’s corpse; the lapis earring was probably from the Ramesside period (a few Rameses had sent their armies to find or reclaim Ahm Shere, Jonathan had found); the couple of gold and silver rings bearing the Roman SPQR were a little incongruous but easy to chalk up to Julius Caesar’s expedition. There were also some 4th Century Persian coins, proving Alexander the Great’s men had also reached Ahm Shere – the Oasis, anyway – and a number of little amulets from various Egyptian expeditions, mostly heart scarabs made of red and green jasper, copper, quartz, bronze, or gold. He hadn’t determined the nature of the green gemstone yet, saving it for last.

Jonathan had been so excited by his find that he hadn’t gambled a single object. Tracing their origins took time, but he had not even told Evy about it yet. Instead he had not only called on every scrap of expertise he had concerning treasure, but also on every book he could lay his hands on. Evy would have been very surprised – not to mention highly suspicious – if she learned how much time he had been spending at the British Library lately.

He had always enjoyed a good riddle. For some reason this one looked promising enough to justify doing some actual work for. Besides, having the artefacts authenticated meant he would be able to get a much better price selling them.

The only thing he had parted with was the (probable) Napoleon coin, the soft gold nibbled almost beyond recognition by the pygmy mummies’ teeth. Another look at it the morning after his resurrection had given him an idea.

Before they left the Medjai camp, Jonathan had obtained from Ardeth a sketch of Nefertiri’s personal cartouche and the address of a talented goldsmith in Cairo; once back in the city, he had wandered down to Kerdasa, the coin and the folded paper safe in the inside pocket of his (whole and clean) jacket.

Just before he reached the little shop, however, he heard a yelp and a startled cry, and was knocked off his feet by something large and hairy. His vision was filled by long camel’s lashes and lips drawn back on long yellow teeth in what Jonathan might have taken as a smile if he hadn’t known better.

Why did every single camel _have_ to have such foul breath, he wondered.

“_ʾAhlan_1, Djem,” muttered Jonathan with a sigh that was half annoyance, and half amused resignation.

And was astonished when the camel immediately disappeared from view, replaced with a familiar face. Satiah’s big brown eyes went wide when she saw him.

“Oh, it’s you, _bāša_2. Hello,” she said with a smile.

Jonathan got up and dusted himself off, irritation quickly fading away. The jacket could survive a little dirt; besides, Satiah’s smile as she hung on to Djem’s bit had lost some of its previous shyness. Considering how fearful she had been the last time – and who could fault her for that, really – it almost made getting knocked over by a foul-smelling bag of hair and wind worth it.

“Good morning, Miss Satiah,” he said in Arabic, picking up his hat from the ground so he could salute her with a flourish. Her hand flew to her mouth to hide a giggle. “It’s a stroke of luck finding you, really. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day, and for, er…”

He reached his limits of the language, and finished in English, “I mean, thank you for returning my wallet to my sister. That was very kind of you.”

“You’re welcome,” Satiah said in Arabic, her cheekbones a little pink. “I’m glad you and your friends got away from those men.”

Jonathan’s smile slipped a notch or two, but he rallied quickly enough.

“Yes,” he said just a little wryly, “we did, at that. In the end.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve just reached my destination,” he added, pointing to a door above which hung a sign saying something about gold in painted Arabic script, “so I’m going to wish you a—”

“You’re going to see Cousin Ashar?” Satiah interrupted, her eyes shining. Immediately afterwards she clamped both hands on her mouth and cringed. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Small world, eh?”

She gave a small smile and led the way into the shop, stopping only to tie Djem to a post.

Ashar – the goldsmith Ardeth had recommended – was a tall, wiry man with a long face, his hair going grey at the temples. He welcomed Satiah warmly and sent her to the backroom to get what she came for. Before she closed the door, she gave Jonathan a little friendly wave, which he returned with a smile. Ashar gave him an odd but not hostile look, eyebrows raised.

Jonathan placed his order, left the coin, and was about to leave, when Ashar called him back, frowning slightly.

“You’re one of the O’Connells, aren’t you.”

Jonathan’s mouth opened and closed as though of its own accord.

“You could say that, yes,” he said eventually. “Why?”

“Because word of the second raising of Anubis’ Army made it to Cairo recently.”

This time Jonathan’s mouth dropped open and remained like that for a handful of seconds. Ashar gave something that was almost a smile.

“Not all of us wear the ritual tattoos, you know.”

“I do know,” Jonathan articulated with only the slightest difficulty. Dr Hakim was a Medjai, and his face was devoid of any tattoo as well. Dr Bey had been the same, now that he thought of it. His gaze went to the door that led to the backroom. “Satiah, too…?”

“Yes. But her mother’s family has lived in Cairo for fifty years. The girl has never seen the desert. She will get good schooling and find a trade, _inshallah_3. The time for living legends is coming to an end.” Ashar looked at the cartouche Ardeth had drawn for reference. “I know what this says. Who the name belonged to. Your commission is either a hollow trinket or a great gift.”

Jonathan drew himself up and said, as dignified as he could, “I’m rather hoping for the latter.”

His own signet ring had been gambled and lost in some card game or another, years ago. His parents would have been so disappointed had they still been alive. The least he could do was make sure his sister had a ring of her own, one that paid tribute to the woman she was and the woman she had been, three millennia ago.

Evy’s reaction when she opened his present proved him right, and even surprised him.

She stared into the box long enough for Jonathan’s brain to go into overdrive. Her silence made him panic ever so slightly. Then she looked up at him, her eyes very bright, lower lip trembling.

Jonathan barely suppressed the need to shuffle like a schoolboy and buried his hands into his pockets, hoping his face didn’t give too much away.

“I know I wasn’t… there – or, you know – _then_,” he said, almost sheepishly. “But I thought… Well. I hoped you’d like it. The cartouche must be right, I got it from Ardeth, and the goldsmith was a bloody good artist, as it turned out, but—”

Evy cut him off by launching herself at him and flinging her arms around his neck, throwing him off balance. As usual, Jonathan stumbled, but managed to catch her in the end.

“It’s perfect,” she whispered into his neck. “Thank you, Jon.”

If his smile was a little wobbly, his eyes a little moist, nobody seemed to notice. Rick and Alex had picked up the little box; Rick’s face lit up in strange recognition, while Alex deciphered the cartouche slowly and grinned.

“Nice one, Uncle Jon. That’s a pretty good present.”

“Yes, about that,” said Jonathan irrepressibly while Evy broke away and wiped her eyes, “I hope you realise that this is the last birthday present you’ll ever get from me, old mum. Since – judging by your reaction – nothing I could give to you could ever top this, I have decided to simply refrain from trying.”

Evy had slapped his arm and called him an idiot with a big smile, then hugged him again. And he had hugged her back, just because he was alive and able to.

The ring hadn’t left her finger since.

“Jon?”

Jonathan was abruptly pulled back to the present, the Stars and Crown, and Tom’s curious smile across the table.

“Hm?”

“You were a thousand miles away.”

“Sorry about that. What about you and Lizzie? Dorset been treating you well, I hope?”

Tom shook his head with a smile.

“It has, sort of, but we’re moving to Oxford. Did Liz tell you she’d been replaced while she was gone?”

Jonathan nodded. Lizzie disappearing for two weeks had not gone unnoticed in her little town, but since the police didn’t have the beginning of a clue and nobody was able to reach Tom, they had moved on to other things and her boss at the telephone exchange had hired someone else. There had been a subtle but definite irony in Lizzie’s letter as she described her and Tom’s return and the scrutiny they’d had to stand up to in order to prove her husband hadn’t killed her and stashed her body away – or vice versa – before his former Chamber of Horus hierarchy stepped in to explain things.

“Well, they needed an operator at the exchange on Pembroke Street. And you know the interview I had this morning at Whitehall? I won’t be too far, as it turns out.” Tom took a deep breath, then said with one of the goofiest smiles Jonathan had ever seen on his face, “I’ll be workin’ from the Bodleian.”

This could only mean one thing. Jonathan grinned.

“The British Antique Research Department accepted your application, didn’t they? Congratulations, old chap. That’s fantastic.”

He downed a mouthful of his G&T and laid an elbow on the table, his chin in his hand.

“Haven’t been to Oxford in almost fifteen years,” he said thoughtfully. “Not since Evy finished her degree. I wonder if the city’s changed.”

“It’s Oxford,” said Tom quietly, looking like his mind was straying down the same path Jonathan’s thoughts were. “I can’t imagine it’ll ever change that much.”

Jonathan smiled quickly into his palm. Then he raised his glass.

“To the two of you, then. And to publicans hopefully not holding grudges, otherwise we’re still banned from half the pubs in Oxfordshire.”

This was a big exaggeration, and they both knew it. Tom snorted and raised his own glass, now almost empty. “To the three of us, and testing that theory sometime. And let’s not wait two decades this time,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

The two glasses clinked.

For just a second, the decades fell away, and Jonathan was twenty years younger.

Lizzie was already waiting for them on the platform by the time they finished their drinks and walked back to Paddington. She carried a shopping bag that looked entirely too small compared to what should be expected of a woman who’d just spent a few hours in the old metropolis. Tom raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you say you planned to go to Harrods while we were in London?”

“I also said I only needed a new suit and the latest Agatha Christie novel,” she said, light teasing in her tone. “The next one will be out sometime in November, I think. Have you heard what the title will be? _Death on the Nile_, of all things.”

Jonathan gave a mock shudder. “I might just give this one a miss, then.”

The train’s whistle pierced the air, cutting the rest of the conversation short. Tom picked up his wife’s bag and Lizzie turned to Jonathan with a smile.

“Goodbye, Jonathan,” she said softly.

The use of his first name had always been a signal that the game was paused and the masks were off, as clear as a referee blowing halftime. Jonathan answered in kind, his throat just a little tight.

“Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

They hadn’t even actually said ‘goodbye’ last time. They had just stood there, she leaning out the train window in her brand-new nurse’s uniform, he and Tommy on the platform amidst the soot, the steam, and the throng of people, until the train departed. The memory was an old hurt that still twinged sometimes, like his left shoulder when the weather was bad.

He cleared his throat and smiled.

“See you on the next Christie novel, then?”

What Lizzie did next might have shocked twenty-year-old Jonathan, who thought he knew her well, and as such very much surprised his current self, who had a little too much experience of the world to truly get shocked anymore. She took his hands in hers, flying in the face of propriety and what had been her rules of conduct in public, and kissed him on the cheek near the corner of his mouth with an aching sweetness. The old Lizzie, so shy and unsure of her self-worth that she was terrified of what people may think, would have been appalled.

It had taken a while for Jonathan to truly grasp how much the years had changed Tommy and start thinking of him as ‘Tom’ to account for that change. Through this apparently simple gesture – simple only to someone who didn’t know Elizabeth Ferguson, née McAllister – Lizzie became ‘Liz’ in an instant.

“I can’t bear to think you died,” she said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “When I think… Without that – that book…”

She took a deep breath. Tom caught Jonathan’s eye and gave a small nod. Of course he had told her. Knowing Liz, she’d take the secret to her grave anyway.

“Take care of yourself, Jonathan, _please_. The world would be so dreadfully dull without you in it,” she added with a tentative smile, to which he replied with a smile of his own, one that hopefully looked steadier.

“Likewise.”

Her hands tightened around his. Just for a second or two, he softly ran his thumb on the back of her hand, an echo of the old intimacy that used to bind them; then their gazes fell away, their hands separated, and the moment was over.

Tom held out his hand with a smile, and Jonathan’s mind was whisked back to that sunny afternoon in Cairo, almost two months ago, and a chance encounter that had reshuffled the cards in a major way. Tom’s handshake was slower this time, steadier, warmer.

“Bye, Jon.”

“Cheers, Tom,” said Jonathan, determined but failing to swallow the lump in his throat. “Have a pint at the Oxford Arms for me.”

Tom nodded, and added his left hand to the handshake, not saying anything. He didn’t need to. As usual – almost – everything he meant to say was on his face and in his eyes for the world to see.

The train let out a burst of steam. Tom hastily let go and made for the train door, stopping only to help Liz aboard. Jonathan looked wistfully at the train for a minute and was about to turn around and go home when he heard his name being called over the din of the locomotive and the running gears chugging into motion.

Tom and Liz were leaning out of a window, wearing identical wide smiles. Liz was waving, her other arm wrapped tightly around her husband. The light in her eyes and her curly hair whipping around her face made her look like the girl from Jonathan’s memories.

“Send my love to Evelyn!” she called. “And say hello to your brother-in-law for me! You’re all welcome anytime for tea!”

“I’ll make sure they know!” shouted Jonathan as the train gathered speed.

The blatant disregard of platform etiquette made several passers-by turn and stare at him with a touch of glower. Jonathan ignored them and kept his eyes on the departing train. Tom’s and Liz’s beaming smiles remained in his head a long time after they had gone back inside the carriage.

He would see them again. This time he was determined not to leave the possibility of a reunion to chance and the vagaries of life. They had been through too much – both twenty years and two months ago – to just go their separate ways.

Besides, Jonathan mused as he left Paddington behind to wade through the bustling streets, he still had some research to do before he set out to sell the objects he had found at Ahm Shere. The Bodleian Library was as good as the British Library; he didn’t risk meeting Evy there and being subjected to her prodding curiosity, which he wasn’t ready to face yet. At least not before he unravelled the mystery of the little gemstone. It looked like an emerald and felt vaguely familiar, as though he had seen it somewhere or heard a story about it.

This required some investigation, if only to be prudent.

After all, he was particularly well placed to know that you can only go so far on fairy tales and hokum alone.

THE END

* * *

1(أَهْلًا): informal “hello”, “hi”.

2باشا (bāša): “sir”, “mister” in Egyptian Arabic.

3ʾin šāʾa llāhu, (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ) – literally “if God has willed it”, “God willing”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t look for the Stars and Crown in Paddington, or the Oxford Arms in Oxford. Unlike the Turf Tavern they’re entirely fictional.
> 
> Agatha Christie’s _Death on the Nile_ was indeed published on 1st November 1937. I couldn’t resist, I mean, come on ;o)
> 
> The Bodleian Library is the main research library in Oxford and one of the oldest in Europe.
> 
> If you’re wondering, yes, that little gemstone might be the basis for a sequel of sorts, but I haven’t really started to plot it. Considering my track record for these things you might see that story sometime in the next decade and a half :P
> 
> Writing and publishing _Fairy Tales and Hokum_ has been such an adventure. I was 21 when I started writing it; now I’ll be 38 in four days. Much as I miss the old crowd of 2003-2006, reposting and updating the story here on AO3 allowed me to know some awesome people. I’m so glad these characters somehow – FINALLY – sneaked back into my head and my heart again with their quirks, their (updated) backstories, and their voices and allowed me to finish this story the way I wanted to. Like I’ve said before, whenever you started reading this, I hope you had a good time now that you’ve reached the end. If you’ve read and left a signed comment – if you’ve read and left an anonymous comment – if you’ve read and left no comment at all – know that I wrote this for you and I hope some of it made you smile.
> 
> Take care of yourselves, love you all, and see you on the next fic? :o)

**Author's Note:**

> I live and breathe for feedback, any comment/review makes me very very happy :o)
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as belphegor1982 if you want to yell about _The Mummy_ and _The Mummy Returns_ (my tag is #the mummy films), and there’s a few _Mummy_-related drawings on my art blog at the-french-belphegor (also tagged #the mummy films) as well!


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